GAINESVILLE, Ga. -

Though Black Book’s Ricky Beggs said bad weather has been a hot button topic at auctions, the “outlook for the market is very positive.”

And though winter storms have slowed sales in the lanes a bit as of late, the average segment price changes last week indicate “a more stable market,” he said in the latest “Beggs on the Used Car Market” video report.

Both the cars and the trucks experienced their lowest declining segment changes for the past four weeks, according to Black Book data.

Beggs said that another sign of an improving market was the percent of price changes that were increases last week.

A significant 25 percent of all price adjustments were increases, which marks the highest level of positive changes since June 7 of last year.

The strongest price retention for the cars was seen among the compact cars and the entry mid-size cars (both  down $15), and the entry level cars with only a $19 decrease.

Beggs said he found this trend “surprising,” since gas prices have been stable over the past month.

Perhaps a better indicator of gas-price environment is the following:

Within the truck segments, the full-size SUVs actually made a turn to the positive side, increasing by $11 for the week.