At least for now, wholesale and retail price trends are both moving in directions that benefit dealers, according to the latest analyses from Black Book’s Ricky Beggs and CNW Research.

First on the wholesale side, Black Book indicated car prices dropped on average of $74 last week — about the same rate they have decreased for the past three weeks. Meanwhile, truck prices slipped by $64 last week, the largest amount Black Book has seen in eight weeks.

Black Book also mentioned the volume of price changes is at the highest rate since the middle of the summer. Editors adjusted 2,148 vehicle prices per day last week, the largest amount since the week ending June 21.

And on the retail front, CNW Research noticed prices are moving up for both franchised and independent dealers this month. CNW president Art Spinella explained what’s going on in the firm’s October Retail Automotive Summary.

“While franchised dealers were asking about a half-percent more than a year ago, they were able to squeeze out a 2.6-percent gain in transaction prices, excluding taxes, fees, aftermarket products, etc.,” Spinella said.

“For independent dealers, the year-over-year gain was a comfortable 7.2 percent, or about twice the increase seen in asking prices,” he continued.

“The month-to-month differences still reflected downward pressure, but that’s not unexpected as the hotter summer season ends and back-to-school volume shrinks,” Spinella added.

During his weekly online video commentary, “Beggs on the Used Car Market,” Beggs also touched on seasonality reaction when discussing why wholesale prices moved lower.

“When last week started, I was thinking what the activity and market would be like for the entire week. I was looking at gas price trends, the fact that used inventory continues to increase and even thinking about the time of the year,” Beggs said.

“While spending time with some key, leading auto lenders from captives to national banks to some regional players, the effort is sure being made to make it easy for the dealers to complete the sale of both new and used inventory,” he continued.

And dealers appear to have plenty of vehicles in inventory to move. CNW indicated the used-vehicle days’ supply has climbed to nearly 47 days this month.

Spinella pointed to the government shutdown, which triggered some business-to-business and government employee sales being lost, as a primary cause for supply approaching this level for the first time since April.

Fuel-Price Analysis

With the federal government open for business once again, Beggs had the chance to review information on gas prices provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Continuing a trend Beggs said has been in place almost every week since the middle of July, the average cost for a gallon of gas dropped again this past week. The level ticked down to $3.35, representing another 2-cent decline.

“Where some weeks the lower gas prices have not had an adverse effect the price change of most of the fuel-efficient models, each of the better fuel-efficient car segments had a larger weekly declining level this past week than the prior week,” Beggs said.

Beggs mentioned one example being entry-level cars. This past week, prices for these units dropped by $48 as compared to the prior week of when the decline was $22.

While the overall price decreases came in even higher last week, Beggs also pointed out full-size cars and the premium sporty cars are going against the segment trend change as “both showed better retention change levels week over week.”

On the truck side, Beggs said that only three truck segments had smaller declines this week past than the prior week.
For the first time in four weeks, prices for luxury SUVs did not decline by at least $100. This past week, the decline came in at $91.

Other improving segments included compact crossovers going from a drop of $51 two weeks ago to a $33 decline this past week as well as truck-based full-size SUVs generating the smallest weekly decline of any vehicle segment at only $14.

Beggs’ latest video can be viewed below.

Nick Zulovich can be reached at nzulovich@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.