J.D. Power’s Chris Visser wrote last week in the company’s Commercial Truck Blog that Class 8 used truck pricing has been surprisingly stable throughout March despite the external stresses on the market due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Visser wrote consumer stockpiling kept freight volumes high throughout the month, supporting used truck demand, and auction activity was better than expected as a result. He says pricing is still likely to end the month down 10 percent, which “we consider pretty good given the uncertainty. Lower-mileage trucks continued to bring decent money, which suggests underlying market dynamics haven’t changed too much.”
In looking forward Visser says once stockpiling begins to slow is when the market will feel the full impact of the current crisis. J.D. Power anticipates prices and volume will fall throughout the second quarter and pegs Q3 as the start of the economic recovery.
“One wild card impacting the new and used truck market is truck factory closures,” Visser adds. “Ceasing production for two weeks (or more) should be a mild assist to new truck inventory levels, although we don’t see much of a spillover effect to the used truck market. Cutting off the supply of new trucks will basically right-size production to the deteriorating demand we expect in the second quarter.”
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