Hello and welcome to this week’s Used Car Market Report from Ricky Beggs and Black Book. The Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday are well behind us and we have had a full week of retail and wholesale activity to digest. Compared to the holiday shortened auction week, the activity and conversion rates made mostly a u-turn this past week. The movement and necessary adjustments for the week supported the impressions expressed by most of the Black Book survey personnel and the editors as they completed their auction attendance and viewings. Other than the shortened holiday week we had the fewest number of adjustments for the past eight weeks, coming in at an average of 1588 vehicles adjusted per day.

The results of the activity in the market brought the car segment average change in at -$34, the lowest weekly average change since the week ending June 7, 2013 when the change was -$33. Segments leading the way with the least level of changes were the Entry Level Cars and the Luxury Level Cars at only -$5, followed by the Entry Sporty Cars at -$7 and the Upper Mid-size Cars and the Full-size Cars both at -$14.

For the two weeks prior to Thanksgiving national average gas price increased a total of $.09. This past week we saw gas prices at the pump decline by $.02. If year ago patterns return, we should see gas prices continue to decline through the final week of 2013, before inching upward again. It is possible that the previous two weeks of increases pushed a little more interest into the smaller, more fuel efficient cars and thus slightly better bidding. Will this trend of softer changes on the fuel efficient models change the other way next week?

The average truck change this past week was at a stable -$50. Ten of the fourteen truck segments had lower than the group segment average. Those over the average change were the Full-size Crossovers at -$185 followed by the Mid-size SUVs at -$82. Another segment declining greater than the group segment average for the trucks, the Luxury SUVs, at -$61 was a significant improvement over the change of the previous three weeks for that segment. The final segment with greater than average change was the Full-size Pickups at -$58, which was also a smaller decline than the previous two weeks.

This past week was extremely busy for the Editorial team. As we continue to do extensive analysis of the market for the used products, we are also using that data, along with additional information for the residual forecasting products. This includes some existing carryover models and even a few that will be in the market within the next couple of months. And just announced this past week, Ford presented some preliminary information on the coming 2015 Mustang. No, we didn’t get to lay hands on this future model, but we are looking forward to that opportunity.

We also had the honor of hosting this year’s leadership of the National Auto Auction Association at the Black Book offices. Black Book President Tom Cross presented the President’s ring to this year’s association Vice President, Ellie Johnson, the current General Manager of Manheim North Carolina. Also during the visit by Jack Neshe current NAAA President, Ellie and Frank Hackett, CEO of the NAAA, Jack presented Tom Cross with a nice framed certificate as the newest Warren Young Fellow. Not too far into the future we will post a video of an extended interview of the leadership team of the NAAA and their thoughts on the industry as we head into 2014.