J.P. Morgan North American Equity Research’s latest business jet monthly update, released yesterday, paints a somewhat optimistic picture even though the data remains “mixed.” It said that business jet flying activity picked up steam in October, while pre-owned inventories continued to dwindle last month, settling at 10.3 percent. However, it is concerned that pre-owned prices haven’t yet found their footing.

“These trends have been in place since midyear and they remained so last month,” J.P. Morgan aerospace analyst Joseph Nadol III noted in the report. Used aircraft prices fell 0.9 percent month-over-month in aggregate, “though there were wide variations among models, and only half declined,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nadol is “encouraged” that the pre-owned inventory of young jets (five years old or less) fell last month by 0.3 points, to 6.0 percent, the lowest level since July 2008 and 0.7 points below the eight-year average. “We still see stabilizing and then improving used prices as a precondition for a genuine pickup in new jet demand,” he said. “Nonetheless, the optimistic interpretation of these recent trends, and one that we are inclined to favor, is that there is finally a market-clearing bottom in pricing taking place.”