Yes, there are many events that don't give an explicit Alert.
It is also important to understand more about your file history. Were there any lates or charge offs or other baddies which you are coming back from? If those are dropping off at just the right time, it could tend to quietly generate upward momentum that can be stronger than the INQ being reported.
And regarding the drop; with an increase of 11 points that fast, the score is likely readjusting again with more news, so it's 11 steps forward, 1 step back. Still going in the right direction, with a little noise in there.
@Anonymous wrote:Curious why my Equifax score would have dropped based on the following history (This is based on myFICO 3-bureau monitoring):
May 17: (702) +0: The balance on one of your accounts has decreased by $301
May 23: (711) +9: A new credit inquiry was added to your credit report
Jun 5: (713) +2: Your FICO score has increased from 711 to 713
Jun 13: (713) +0: The balance on one of your accounts has decreased by 26%/$2169
Jun 19: (712) -1: The balance on one of your accounts has decreased by 22%/$1491
Why did the score move in opposite directions than what would be expected (Went up for inquiry - vehicle financing -- but new account has not been picked up yet from NMAC. And then decrease in balances of ~$3500 end up dropping the score 1 point)
Thanks.
The balances out weighed the inq, so your score went up. 
At a swag VS penalizes revolving debt more harshly and possibly not by the same % metrics FICO appears to use for the bulk of the score card. Do know that VS 3.0 takes into accounts your high CL by dollar value in some calculation, non-zero chance they're using a $ calculation for debt too. That might correlate with another poster who was railing at VS 3.0 recently anyway with a similar differential in scores. Actually in thinking about it I somewhat agree, limits are really fungible and aggressively extended to people, but if I used all of my ~35K limit while I could afford it, it'd be more than annoying to do so... whereas some people have $100K -> $1M limits and maxxing that out is rationally a bigger problem since FICO doesn't take into account income and I'm not sure lenders really do in aggregate either. I'd really struggle to meet 100K in credit card debt as far as financial obligations go, and my income doesn't suck compared to national averages.
Over limit ain't a thing really for FICO: revolving utilization is, but that's temporary and addressible in the short-term as it's instant in time calculation. Pay it back down you'll be OK. Where I'm more interested in is what VS does, the score doesn't matter nearly as much but it's become a curiosity and some lenders do use it.
@Anonymous wrote:I think what may have raised it the 11 points was the fact that I did have an account that went over-limit the previous month -- and many of my accounts update with the CRAs around the same time (the majority update between the 20th & 28th each month when the statements post) -- and not the fact that the inquiry came in.
I have no negatives on my reports at all -- but I do know that an over-limit will have a really bad outcome on scores.. My problem is utilization -- but, as you can see, I'm taking big strides to knock that down now that I have a good plan in place..
It is interesting how much impact utilization of single accounts is weighed on the Credit Karms's Vantage 3.0 scores.. That is what prompted me to start the MyFICO 3B monitoring.. My FICO's had never dropped below 700, and when I viewed CK's FAKO scores, they were 583 for EQ and 572 for TU.. Fortunately, when I started the 3B, they were very different -- EQ 702, TU 711, EX 701. That was in April... Now I'm at EQ 712, TU 728, and EX 717, so I'm making good progress - and had no issues obtaining financing from NMAC at Tier 1 rate. (For comparison sake, CK's Vantage scores have gone up -- but are still categorized as "Poor" -- with 636 for EQ and 638 for TU)
Thanks for the feedback and assistance.
Was there a score decline the previous month?