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 identifies a potential new trend that may signal that the end of the spring market may be around the corner. Many car segments saw weakening retention, which is a reversal of the previous several weeks.

“Compact Cars experienced the largest decline while Compact Crossover/SUVs showed the biggest lift in values as supplies on small cars remains high while demand for small crossovers continues to be strong,” said Anil Goyal,  Senior Vice President of Automotive Valuation and Analytics.

• Volume-weighted, overall car values decreased by 0.21% last week. This is slightly higher than the average depreciation rate of 0.13% seen in the previous four weeks.
• Compact Car, Sub-Compact Car, Prestige Luxury Car and Luxury Car segments performed the worst, changing by -0.35%, -0.31%, -0.28% and -0.24%, respectively.
• Volume-weighted, overall truck values increased by +0.05% last week. This is much better than the average change of -0.12% seen in the previous four weeks.
• Compact Crossover/SUV and Minivan segments performed the best, changing by +0.36% and +0.25%, respectively.

Specialty Markets Report

• Collectible Cars: We’ve been seeing a pretty large uptick in late-model luxury vehicles showing up at collectible car auctions recently. Although this isn’t really a new concept (many of the less desirable auction time slots have been filled in with these kinds of cars for years), what is different now is the amount that we’re seeing and the prominence that these vehicles, such as the R-230 (2001-2012) Mercedes Benz SL models, are receiving.
• Recreational Vehicles: As we enter the last part of spring and the first part of summer, the values of RVs sold at wholesale auction have started to level off. This is not surprising for this time of year, as most dealers have been buying inventory for the past several months in order to be fully stocked when the first wave of shoppers were lured into their stores by the nicer weather.
• Powersports: After last month’s solid, though modest, gains for most of the segments, things are more of a “mixed bag” this month. Prices are generally up for the more recent models, while many of the older units have declined a bit, bringing down the averages.
• Heavy-Duty Trucks: Depreciation for the past three months has been very consistent but there were signs at the very end of April that auction values for the Over the Road and Regional Heavy Duty Trucks may be starting to drop more heavily. The Constructional/Vocational segment have showed no signs of this increasing depreciation.
• Medium Duty Trucks: We continue to see in the Medium Duty Truck wholesale market, a stable rate of decline. The 2005-2012 model years came down on average, $109 or 0.6%. In March, that average decline for this group was, $114 or 0.6%. The 2013 & 2014 model years had similar declines. The average amount of decline was $346 or 0.8% for April, and in March, that average decline was $335 or 0.8%.

Click here to download the full report