Dealer Trade Network is a wholesale trading market of new-vehicle inventory. And the company has launched a new index that compares the new-car wholesale trading price (i.e., new vehicles sold from dealer to dealer) with the invoice prices of those new vehicles.

What did the New Car Wholesale Monthly Trading Price Index determine?

For one, that the average new-car wholesale trade price was $4,787 higher than invoice price in December, and that it was nearly $5,550 higher earlier in the year.

In September, Dealer Trade Network spotted a $5,494 difference between the average new-car trade price and invoice price. This occurred as “new car inventory levels dipped below one million units nationally for the first time in nearly four decades,” the company said in a news release.

According to the data provided by Dealer Trade Network, the national inventory of new cars remained below 1 million units in October, November and December, as well.

For perspective, national inventory of new cars was well above 2.5 million units in January 2021, its data shows.

At that time, invoice prices were $558 higher than the wholesale trade prices of new cars. In February, that spread increased to $771.

But in March, wholesale trade prices were $989 over invoice, and they maintained an edge each month the rest of the year.

Dealer Trade Network said that it facilitated close to 5,400 wholesale trades of new vehicles last year.

“Despite the new-car inventory crunch of 2021, we have grown our wholesale trading business 72% year over year,” Dealer Trade Network chief executive officer David Kohn said in a news release.

“What we continue to see is that new-car inventory needs to be better balanced across the country and we provide the market and platform to assist the dealership to better manage their inventory,” Kohn said.