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Hot Sunday afternoon

As it nears 90 today, my youngest son and I are in the office organizing things and trying to stay cool. He's patient with me and really just wants to go to Verizon for a tour of the new phone he has his eye on. I leave my phone turned off on Sundays to keep my mind at work with out that device. I am deliberating how to adjust my company fee structure and wrestle with making a slight increase. We are starting our eleventh year in business and have never increased our prices... yet all around me auction fees are increasing steadily. My expense structure is fairly flat, but costs such as Autoniq (NADA, Black Book, AutoCheck, and Carfax) are increasing. Verizon... the amount of data we use on the hand held devices... is also increasing and the two combined are justification for making the change to our fee. It's a growing pain more than anything, and for that I am pleased. Going on in to the remainder of July and peeking at August, only a continued weakness in retail sales will move the auction index down. In spite of slow sales and lower demand, the auction market is fairly firm. The oldest, highest mileage wholesale units are soft, but trucks and mid-size SUV's are strong. Optimism abounds with car guys, but the sting of June is still there and July presents the vacation challenge. We will see how this next week goes, but I forecast lower dealer participation at the block until retail improves###

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