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GAINESVILLE, Ga. — The staff at Black Book saw plenty of fireworks going into the July 4 holiday as editors adjusted almost 1,020 vehicles per day last week.

Managing editor Ricky Beggs shared during his weekly look at the market that all of the activity brought an overall price change for those adjusted vehicles of about $12 lower than the previous week.

Breaking down the changes, Beggs indicated 55 percent of the adjustments were increases in value as compared to the previous week while only 39 percent were decreases. Nevertheless, Black Book calculated that the behavior resulted in the overall change in average price being $5 less for the truck segments and $58 less for the total car market.

"The drop in car values was the largest weekly change since back in cold weather for the week ending Jan. 22," Beggs found.

"Conversely, the truck change was the smallest since the week ending May 21, where the change was on the plus side at a $1.48 increase," he added.

Looking in more detail, Black Book revealed the segments with the largest increases were full-size vans and full-size wagons at $66 and $68 respectively. Analysts also found the two truck segments with the largest decline in average value were the compact crossover utilities at $50 and the mid-size crossovers at $44.

Furthermore, Black Book declared this past week was the fifth one in a row where all 10 car segments ended with drops in average segment values.

Beggs mentioned the drop for prestige luxury cars at $204 was the largest weekly change since Dec. 18. That's when this same segment slipped $221.

Black Book offered that other weaker than normal segments included the luxury level cars dipping $76, premium sporty cars dropping $68, and entry sporty cars falling by $57.

"These numbers tell me there is not one overarching market trend, but probably three or four distinct segment-specific trends," Beggs explained

"From a 30,000-foot view, you might see two trends — where cars are weak and trucks are up slightly to very stable," he continued.

"From 10,000 feet, we see the higher dollar luxury type cars having the weakest trending, with the normal entry, mid- and full-size cars with more normal changes," Beggs went on to highlight.

"From a more microscopic, hands-on, personally on the auction lanes viewpoint, the overall truck segments have the full-size vans and the full-size wagons, followed by the full-size SUVs and the full-size pickups with the greatest strengths," he added.

Beggs made two more points specifically about segments within Black Book's truck analysis.

"The least volatile and very popular segments were the mid-size pickups, compact SUVs and the full-size crossovers," Beggs shared.

"An interesting note is that one of the most stable truck segments this past week, the full-size crossovers had been the most volatile for the previous six weeks," he pointed out.

Black Book editors plan to watch closely vehicles from the 2009 and 2010 models years. They believe these vehicles seem to be having the hardest time getting sold in higher percentages in relation to consignment.

In a related matter, Black Book also mentioned it promoted associate and import editor Terry Park to senior car editor. Park has been tasked with leading the car model editors in their detailed market analysis, market reporting and residual setting processes

"Our congratulations go to Terry," Beggs stated.

With the heat of summer now at hand, Black Book is geared toward keeping up with how the market behaves.

"We hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday over the weekend with cookouts, pool parties and families watching fireworks," Beggs said. "We look forward to getting back on the auction lanes across the country this week."