Welcome to this week's edition of Black Book Market Insights, with in-depth analysis of used car and truck valuation trends and insights straight from the auction lanes. Click here to download the full report.

This week’s Black Book Market Insights report zeroes in on the peak of the current spring selling season, where car and truck segments have not performed equally. Opposite of the latter half of 2015, trucks so far this year have shown weakness in their pricing for many segments, particularly over the last three weeks for segments such as Compact Utilities and Pickups.

“Some Truck segments are facing the inevitable. Half of all truck segments declined at a higher rate than the Luxury Car segment, the cars’ worse performing weekly segment,“ said Anil Goyal,  Senior Vice President of Automotive Valuation and Analytics 

Volume-weighted, overall car values decreased by only 0.04% last week. The week ending March 13, 2015 had the same depreciation rate, and was then followed by four weeks of positive adjustments.

Sporty and Compact car segments have received four straight weeks of improved week-to-week retention. The Compact car segment had its highest retention rate since the week ending March 20, 2015.

Volume-weighted, overall truck values decreased by 0.3% last week. This is well below the same week last year at +0.26%, but consistent with the previous four weeks average depreciation rate of 0.33%.

Trucks have experienced higher depreciation rates than cars for three weeks in row now. The overall truck average has a three week depreciation rate of -0.35% compared to the cars -0.13%.

Specialty Markets Update for April

Collectible Cars: There has been some chatter in collectible car circles recently, especially after the Arizona and Retromobile auctions, that the market was either ‘in decline’ or ‘leveling off’.

Powersports: As expected, prices spring forward this month as the Powersports market enters its prime selling season; however, continuing a trend that dates back nearly a year, the increases were once again on the modest side.

Recreational Vehicles: The weather has finally started to improve, and the performance of RVs at auction has followed suit.  Motorized and towable units have once again moved in the same direction, which would not be noteworthy were it not for their erratic performance for much of 2015. 

Heavy-Duty: The majority of Heavy Duty Trucks being sold at auction are Over the Road Tractors. Their values have dropped and are possibly settled in at a rather normal depreciation rate.

Medium-Duty: In the Medium Duty market, the rate of decline continues to slow. The 2005-2012 model years came down on average, $114 or 0.6%. In February, that average decline for this group was, $178 or 1.0%.

Click here to download the full report