Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Used Car Market Report, with insights from Ricky Beggs and Black Book. Thank you for taking the time to hear our thoughts on the market activity from the past week. During the conference there were multiple opportunities to hear from so many key industry personnel connected to CPO, lenders, recovery and repossessions and the traditional remarketing channels. The question might be what is termed traditional remarketing in today’s ever changing market? Multi-platform and the hub selling got more extensive discussion, and so did the comments by many that physical auctions will continue to prosper, and should for many years to come. No matter the venue, technology is going to be a piece of the business from sourcing, consigning, financing and even shipping.

Congratulations to so many who received special recognition during the conference. Black Book was proud to sponsor the Subprime Auto Finance Executive of the Year which was awarded to Ian Anderson, President of Westlake Financial Services.
Another special award, the Auto Remarketing Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Mr. Don Fowler of DataScan Financial Services. Don is still going strong after 40 years in the automotive, auction and remarketing industries.

As we look at the market results for the past week, we see a mid-fall market. Consistent overall average segment changes this past week, that are very close to the average segment change since the first week of October indicate a steadily trending market. The -$67 change of the cars is just under the -$72 average change over the past seven weeks, and slightly less than the year ago change of -$78. The Premium Sporty Cars took the biggest dollar adjustments at -$119, with a trend of eleven of the past twelve weeks at declines of greater than -$100. It is the fall and heading into winter, not the most exciting time to have a high level sports car on your lot for speculation.

It is interesting to note that with gas continuing to decline in price at the pump to $2.94 per gallon, four of the five more fuel efficient car segments had depreciation of -.57% to -.84%, as compared to the -.76% overall change for the cars. This is the first time with low gas prices that the change has been at that level of decline consistently for the more fuel efficient cars.

The truck segments have also been very steady in their level of change since the first of October. At -$51 this past week, the average segment change for the trucks for the past seven weeks is -$48, and the year ago change of -$42. The Full-size Van segments did not increase this past week but the change levels were very close to the lowest declines of the past nine weeks. The Compact and Mid-size Pickups this past week at -$14 and +$2 respectively, had a good week and are averaging a -$39 change over the past month. We feel this is as much a low supply effect as anything. The Full-size Pickups at -$79 are very consistent over the past four weeks of -$73, and -$67 from one year ago.

This past week the Black Book editors adjusted the most vehicles on average each day over the past three weeks, at 1886 per day. Of those adjustments over the past week, 28% were increases, the largest percent of increases since back in the summer for the week ending July 2, 2014.

This week will be a great time to get that additional or specific piece of inventory prior to the Thanksgiving holiday week. We look forward to seeing you back on the lanes before the holidays. Have a great week.