It seemed like the stuff of posturing and hot air. It was hard to see anything substantive changing from the weekend meetings of the G20 nations in Argentina. Will something more than kicking-the-can come from the concessions?
Two largest economies agree to halt hostilities through first quarter after a year of trade saber rattling.
Oregon produces about 6 million Christmas trees each year, more than any other state in the U.S.
Is the economy still healthy? Are people still making things, shipping things, and buying things? According to the railroad car data, the answer is a definitive “Yes.”
The tax changes of 2017 caused some fleets to consider leasing as opposed to buying, and new accounting rule changes could have a similar effect, says Fleet Advantage.
The size of the US goods trade deficit with the rest of the world increased again in October, as a large decline in exports and a small gain in imports pushed the deficit near record levels. The total value of traded goods fell slightly during the month but is still considerably higher than at this point last year despite significant changes to trade policy.
This morning Fleet Complete, a global leader in connected vehicle technology and software, announced that it had been acquired by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a large fund with $193.9B in assets.
Detroit tops list of places for online retail start-ups; climate change seen having a major impact on U.S. infrastructure.
Jubitz brings in about $40 million of the company’s $175 million annual revenues as the industry contracts and braces for tech and regulatory headwinds.
Tesla cuts prices of Model S and Model X; oil prices are down to a one-year low; Hong Kong bats for free trade; Hapag-Lloyd is launching a premium product based on extensive market research.
The conference attracted over 2,000 industry players and largely revolved around the topics of Asian connectivity, the impact of trade tariffs, and technologies that are revolutionizing the logistics industry.
Also today: going to jail for bogus CDLs; ecommerce driving the Canada Post labor dispute.
Trucking executive points to final mile delivery as draining driver pool, so think about that on Cyber Monday.
Upcoming summit could provide surprise deal, but acrimony and lack of consensus puts deal in doubt.
Retail activity posted the strongest gain in five months, as big gains in auto sales and rising gasoline prices helped to drive overall activity. Core spending grew at a more moderate pace, but the broad-based nature of the gains is encouraging headed into the holiday season.
It’s a tricky balance between risk and safety, but in the trucking world, before freight futures, there was no way to protect a company’x exposure.
Good times at U.S. ports not expected to last as world’s largest shipping line warns trade war will rear up at start of next year.
This morning at MarketWaves18 in Grapevine, Texas, FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller announced that freight futures will begin trading on March 29, 2018.
2018 may have seen tight capacity and the strongest economy on record since the Great Recession, but what will 2019 look like?
“We went through a period when growth of shipping was 2-3 times the growth in international economy. I don’t think those times are coming back.”
The author of Moneyball and other books expresses concern about the possible misuse or ignoring of data coming out of the federal government in his talk before Marketwaves18.
New York and Crystal City the big winners, of course, but Music City will house e-retailer’s operations center for the eastern U.S.
The Cass Truckload Linehaul Index reached another record high in October while the company’s Intermodal Price Index points to rising intermodal costs.
The U.S.-China trade war has brought misery to the thriving U.S. lobster industry, which is now feeling the heat of an additional 25% tariff that Beijing slapped on its live and processed lobster exports to China.
DHL hopes plan will attract new recruits to industry as shortfall looms.
China’s imports record strong third quarter with October data also suggesting more goods on the way.
Its financial metrics were not strong, but management sees recapitalization as key to its future.
Data on producer prices shows that overall inflation pressure jumped at the start of the 4th quarter, though core price gains were more modest. Industry detail showed that trucking rates posted another solid gain in October, with big gains in long-distance rates offsetting declines in LTL.
Lows water levels are seasonal, but this year has been record, impeding low-cost barges and favoring high-cost trucking.
More of the same. That was the consensus in a quick informal poll of listeners to FTR’s State of Freight webinar on Thursday when they were asked what the most likely outcome was for the U.S. economy in 2019.
Rail and truck demand a secondary casualty in trade dispute.
A surge in freight from Los Angeles has started to inflect the Dallas and Houston freight markets. Meanwhile, Harrisburg, PA’s strong headhaul score makes that Northeast market a diamond in the rough.
Also in the pickup: better tools for sleep apnea instruments in sleeper berths; does Buffet care about BNSF’ OR?
A decrease in coal volumes did not slow a revenue rise at BNSF Railway Company, which posted a 16% increase in operating revenues in the third quarter compared to Q3 2017.
The measure would have rolled back diesel fuel taxes from 36 to 16 cents a gallon.
The company is not turning its back on acquisitions forever but thinks it needs to digest the heavy slate of companies it has bought since the middle of 2018.
Tuesdays may not be good days to be on the road; transport firms need to boost analytics usage to match what customers are doing.
ArcBest posted excellent operating results for the third quarter, but executives failed to clarify the company’s pension liabilities, which were the subject of a controversial short seller report last month.
Job growth rebounded in October after Hurricane Florence disrupted hiring activity in the previous month. Within the transportation and logistics industry, trucking payrolls expanded for the sixth consecutive month, though growth lagged behind the pace of hiring among parcel companies and warehouses.
SONAR’s OTVI.LAX is clearly indicating that the strength in the inbound loaded container flow out of the Long Beach/LA port is continuing and gathering momentum.
The driver squeeze forced U.S. Xpress to shift resources from OTR to Dedicated. Still, it posted a healthy increase in its OR.
Less-than-truckload carrier plans to rejuvenate fleet and remain focused on price over volume.
Schneider National (NYSE: SNDR) reported strong third quarter earnings, announcing $1.3 billion in operating revenue, a 15 percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2017.
A monthly survey of all the important economic developments from the past month, and a look at some of the key trends to watch throughout the month of November.
The pipelines taking oil away from the Permian are at capacity, causing a buildup of WTI inventory at the Cushing, OK storage sites and depressing the price of WTI against Brent. Prices would be even lower if Venezuela and Iran weren’t causing further worries about global supply.
LTL carrier says Northeast expansion to continue with new facilities, but segment remains at breakeven results.
In a CarrierLists survey of fleets, most respondents expect rates and volumes to remain the same or improve in 2019.
FreightWaves discussed how the midterm elections impact the economy at large, and specifically how it pertains to freight. What are the implications to the economic indicators regardless of the winner?
The FreightWaves Research Institute is excited to announce the release of its second white paper, Global Freight Tickers, a worldwide study of publicly traded transportation and logistics companies
Drayage to be test bed as OTR market remains out of EV reach.
Surge in low-sulfur fuel use by ships could usher in two to three year period of uncertainty in refining industry.
Some of the stocks that were getting hammered at midday recovered on the back of the broader market rebound by the close. One exception: Ryder.
Ryder System (NYSE: R) reported record total revenue and record operating revenue for the third quarter. Both total and operating revenue grew across all business segments, which the company attributed to new business and higher volumes.
Growth in the US economy slowed slightly in the third quarter of the year, but remains strong headed into the end of 2018 and consumers and inventory building carried the load.
There’s no particular pattern in seeing which stocks have declined significantly more than the drop in the overall S&P 500 index.
It was a better quarter for three companies representing different sectors: 3PL, intermodal and truckload.
OD’s top line revenue grew 21.2% year over year to $1.06B and earnings per share swelled 71% to $2.12. Even more impressively, Old Dominion achieved a 78.4% operating ratio, a company (and possibly industry) record and 280 bps improvement over Q3 2017.
The Unified Plan 2020 is in place in one corridor, with another to come. So far, UP executives are boasting about its success.
Tesla’s best quarter ever is a huge deal: a rich mix of high end Model 3s and lower capex helped. We still don’t think TSLA shares are rationally priced.
Daimler Trucks sold more vehicles in quarter three than a year ago, but its parent company, Daimler AG saw revenue flat for the third quarter at $45.8 billion (40.2 billion Euros).
Knight-Swift Transportation reported strong earnings on Wednesday, and it was immediately met with praise from Morgan Stanley analyst Ravi Shanker, who wrote in a note that the company’s stock is a “relative buy, at worst, in our view.”
UPS Inc. will expand its “My Choice” customized delivery program to the business-to-business segment during the first quarter of next year.
Although a full reveal of its strategy was not part of the conference call, the discussion of the “clean sheets” program shows that Norfolk Southern has undertaken a review of its operations on its way to how much of the precision railroading model it will adopt.
CEO David Parker expects very strong demand in Q4 and Covenant to shift further to dedicated capacity in 2019 in an effort to “get deeper into the supply chain.”
Crude-by-rail is big growth driver for quarter as rail remains key outlet for Canadian crude.
While the index is still showing significant gains over last year, there clearly is a decline from recent highs.
Revenue forecasts were reached only because of a one-time tax event. But by almost any other standard, it was a strong quarter.
Also in the pickup: IMO meets with 2020 on the horizon; Rhine levels are causing plants to shut down; C.R. England and its charitable cause
Trucking Freight Futures are coming. Learn more at MarketWaves18 with our complementary and comprehensive Trucking Freight Futures training!
The usual signs of an upturn in the trucking sector aren’t there, according to the Wall Street house, and Morgan wonders if a lot of the demand got pushed forward.
SONAR’s Headhaul Index map and the HAUL.JOT Index are both showing that the return to growth in inbound loaded container flow first seen in the Long Beach/LA port is continuing and gathering momentum.
One quarter ago, their earnings were feared to have marked a peak. But there’s no signs of that reading the third quarter numbers.
45 companies applied for a spot in the annual Innovators Pavilion at the FIA Futures & Options Expo, 15 finalists were chosen, 5 were selected by a panel of judges to present at the at FIA Innovator of the Year pitch competition, but only 1 came out on top.
The CEO of Heartland defends the company’s strategy that saw a lot less revenue but a lot more in profits.
Continuing efforts to fight what he says are unfair trade practices, the administration of President Donald Trump announced the U.S. will pull out of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) treaty, which sets how much can be charged for international shipping.
Also in today’s issue: a beating shows the dangers to truckers, even off the road; an Indian company looks to disrupt that company’s trucking sector.
A significant falloff in revenue went along with the rise in profitability as the operating ratio took a big leap forward.
A significant falloff in revenue went along with the rise in profitability as the operating ratio took a big leap forward.
Housing starts fell more than expected in September, as the impact of Hurricane Florence caused a massive decline in construction activity in the South. This put a damper on what would otherwise be a decent report and leaves some uncertainty about the underlying strength of one of the key components of freight demand.
Although some of its individual ORs were less than a year ago, the company said its 14-month record on OR is its best ever.
Linx Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, announced that it successfully sold its investment in Grammer Industries to Stellex Capital Management.
Despite an exceptionally strong year for trailer orders, Wabash National’s stock took a hit when the company guided downward for its Q3 results, blaming higher input costs and labor issues.
Industrial output continued to push ahead in September, signaling that one of the key drivers of freight demand remained solid at the end of the 3rd quarter. Production was restrained slightly by the impact from Hurricane Florence, but not enough to prevent growth in the sector from reaching a near 8-year high.
Retail activity eked out a meager gain for the second consecutive month, as a sharp decline in spending at restaurants weighed down the headline numbers. Retail conditions remain generally solid, however, as the sector looks poised for healthy growth to round out the year.
Rail seems to be benefiting from higher diesel prices and capacity constraints with SONAR data suggesting more loads are shifting to intermodal in shorter lengths of haul.
Massive scale, cyclical and structural advantages, and best-in-class technology make C.H. Robinson a ‘buy’ despite a transports selloff, say analysts at Stifel and Goldman Sachs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted today, posting its biggest loss since May 29; meanwhile the S&P 500 is on a losing streak that hasn’t been matched in upwards of 2 years.
Data on producer prices shows that overall inflation pressure continued to stabilize at the end of the 3rd quarter, rising modestly in September. Rates within trucking posted stronger growth during the month, led by big increases in LTL pricing.
Gains in rates will moderate in coming quarters, but underlying issues of driver availability will keep market tight.
Differences remain in what is best path for drivers to follow, but all agree that port congestion is a problem that needs fixing.
Job growth stumbled in September as Hurricane Florence likely disrupted results during the month. Unemployment continued to trend down in the economy however, and labor market conditions remain generally tight. Hiring within trucking continued to advance during the month, growing for the 5th consecutive month.
Indices are clearly signaling that the container volume coming in through the Long Beach/LA port is surging and bodes well for the holiday shopping season.
In her final conference call as CEO, PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi presented their third-quarter results, once more pointing to transportation costs that threatened to eat into profits.
The United States – Mexico – Canada Agreement (USMCA) protects multinational oil and gas companies’ investments in Mexico from incoming President López Obrador.
Survey data from the manufacturing and service sectors continue to point towards robust growth in the 3rd quarter. Manufacturing activity slipped slightly from multi year highs during the month, but service activity has pushed to record highs despite shortages in labor and trucking capacity.
Driver churn continues to plague the industry as the turnover rate at large truckload carriers has reached its highest point in five years.
Stifel’s John Larkin captivated the audience with a wide-ranging presentation on transportation and logistics across modes during Tuesday’s lunch at the McLeod User Conference 2018.
The depreciating Indian rupee coupled with rising fuel prices have hit the Indian transportation corridor quite hard. The Indian government is now coming up with new regulations and innovative transportation practices to ease pressure.
A roundup of economic data releases and events over the past month, and view of trends worth watching in October. Freight demand conditions remained generally solid during the month, though international trade and housing remain trouble areas. Supply within trucking looks to be expanding, and hires in the industry continued to climb
Tender volumes are taking many by surprise, but not those that understand what is happening with the use of ELD’s by small carriers, especially in the dry van segment.
