Here is the latest Used Car Market Report from Ricky Beggs and Black Book. I knew it was going to be a great week when a couple of dealers from Ohio, that were on the same flight and whom I did not know, but who watch this video market blog every week, had one of the flight attendants come to my seat and start asking questions about Black Book. I thought this a little strange but like I tell everyone in the auto business, everyone needs a little Black Book to know the real market values. Today, most of these “little Black Books” are on your mobile phones. While at the convention in New Orleans we revealed the new Black Book Digital for iPhone applications.

When looking at the most recent market movement it is interesting to see the changes taking place. The activity is still positive and the comments indicated a pretty good market overall where dealers need additional and fresh inventory. A couple of the Black Book survey personnel indicated in their reports that the luxury market was being a little hesitant. Once the week came to an end and the results of our editors and analysts were compiled, the biggest movements in both the cars and the trucks were the luxury type or more premium focused models and segments. The Luxury SUVs have a five-of-the-past-six-week-run while being the leading declining amounts for the trucks with the level of change being greater than -$100 each week. Within the cars, those declining levels of the Prestige Luxury Cars at -$198, the Premium Sporty Cars at -$173, and the Luxury Level Cars at -$87, followed by the Near Luxury Level Cars at -$72, were the largest dollar declines.

Overall the cars had larger declining levels week over week of -$58 two weeks ago compared to -$72 this past week. This is the second largest declining weekly change over the past ten weeks. The two better dollar level changes within the cars were the Entry Level Cars and the Compact Cars, which were solid improvements from the previous week’s changes. There are probably some who might think the changes in gas prices might be a partial factor in the most recent weekly changes. Gas did increase $.07 week over week and is now $.08 higher than year ago prices. A few weeks back we talked about the expected “first of the year bump at the pump” and we are now $.15 higher than the prices during the middle of December.

The trucks average segment change at -$64 is the greatest weekly declining change over the past four weeks.

A couple of other eye openers were the level of declines this past week on the Compact SUVs at -$84, the Compact Crossovers at -$90 and the Full-size Pickups at -$76, while even the Mid-size Pickups were larger declines than expected at -$75. These just mentioned segments are all at much larger declining amounts than the prior week.

Whether cars or trucks, the market seems softer than year ago period levels when cars were at -$49 and the trucks were even more stable at -$22. The nasty and frigid weather covering and affecting probably close to three quarters of the country could be a factor.