Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Used Car Market Report from Black Book. As you can tell we are again recording this market video blog via Skype while on the road. Where has the industry taken us this week? We are coming to you from the exhibition hall floor and the Black Book booth at the 98th annual NADA Convention and Exposition in San Francisco. Unfortunately there is no time to visit nearby Napa Valley or any of the other wineries in the area.

The first part of last week had some of our lender solutions team at the annual AFSA conference, also in San Francisco, and now we are at the ATD and NADA conventions with thousands of franchised dealers and industry suppliers. The conversations so far have been lively and positive. Expectations for 2015 are positive with the automotive industry leading the improving economy.

Throughout the week the Black Book survey personnel, along with the editors, have physically attended and watched over seventy auctions. From this market insight, what a story there is to report. Limited no sales often are causing heads to shake at the strong prices. In most cases even the late models are active. And of course, the tax season favorites are getting sold. By the end of the week we finished with 36% of all adjustments being increases. This is now six of the past seven weeks at 30% or more being increases. This is not all that unusual during February and March each year, but this level supports our comments as to how active the market is now, and was back in November and even December.

Week over week the -$62 average segment change for the cars was just under the -$63 change the prior week. The largest declining segments were the Luxury Level Cars at -$129 and the Prestige Luxury Cars at -$108. The spring market continues to be good for values in the Entry Level Cars with a car segment best -$20.

The trucks at -$43 were also similar to the prior week of -$46. For three consecutive weeks the Compact SUVs increased, this past week at +$71. The other better retention segments at very small declining levels were the Full-size Pickups at -$6, the Mid-size SUVs at -$9 and both the Full-size Vans and Wagons at -$12 and -$7. Except for the larger drop the prior week for the Mid-size SUVs, these have been our better performers over the past month or so. On the other end of the change level we continue to have larger declines over the past two to four weeks with the Full-size SUVs at -$114, the Full-size Crossovers at -$95 and the Luxury SUVs at -$85 this past week. One would think the continuing falling gas prices would get a better reaction from these full-size utilities. Yes, gas prices fell again this past week to $2.07 and for the first time in well over the last year diesel is under $3.00 at $2.93, after a peak in 2014 at $4.02.

Thanks for tuning in today and for your use of the Black Book products and services. We’ll be looking for you back on the auction lanes again this week. Have a great day!