LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -

For the newest installment of Market Insights that covered the week that ended on the last day of July, Black Book used a moniker that might be quite delighting to dealers and a potential signal to consignors for some strategy modification.

Analysts arrived at their assertions after seeing that wholesale prices softened another 0.54% last week.

“As manufacturers find creative solutions to deal with the semiconductor chip shortage and dealerships continue to strategically procure inventory, wholesale prices declined for the fifth consecutive week,” Black Book said in the newest report.

“Although the last few weeks of declines don’t compare much to the prior 22 weeks’ average rate of increases, this change of direction may mark the turning point for the automotive market,” analysts continued. “New vehicles are being produced. However, some are without previously standard equipment like head-up displays, adaptive cruise and start-stop functions.”

Perhaps some late-model cars that are equipped with those features can be procured at auction for a slightly lower price based on Black Book’s newest volume-weighted information.

Analysts found that overall car segment values decreased 0.68% last week after declining 0.63% a week earlier.

Still going the opposite way of the overall trend are subcompact cars, which now have seen their prices increase for 25 consecutive weeks. Last week, the value rise was 0.23%.

More affordable car options for dealers looking for those pieces of inventory include full-size cars (down 1.19%), midsize cars (down 1.14%) and compact cars (down 1.02%).

In the truck world, Black Book indicated its volume-weighted data showed values for these units softened another 0.47% last week. That’s coming off of a 0.49%. value decline during the previous week.

However, the upward price beat goes on for compact and full-size vans, which each posted weekly value gains of 0.43%.

Analysts noticed that compact luxury crossover/SUVs sustained the steepest price decline at 1.01%, followed by midsize luxury crossovers/SUVs at 0.81%.