Freight Futures lanes to watch today: Outbound LAX Futures Lanes
The final week of trading in the spot month Trucking Freight Futures contracts will be a short one as the markets are closed on Thursday and Friday in observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Monday’s trading session was a virtual repeat of the end of last week with the spot National contract (FUT.VNU201911) dropping 0.21% to settle at $1.459/mile. Pressuring national rates were both the South regional contract (FUT.VSU201911), which continued its slide by closing down 0.6% to $1.309 and the West regional contract (FUT.VWU201911), which fell 0.25% to finish the session at $1.583. Inching higher was the East regional contract (FUT.VEU201911), which finished fractionally higher to $1.484.
The story on the lanes continues to be outbound freight rates from the LAX market, which remain under dual pressure from a weak holiday season and weak maritime freight volumes into the Los Angeles area ports. The purple line in the SONAR chart below represents weekly maritime imports into the LAX market (WCSTM.LAX) and highlights this weakness. The LAX to DAL contract (FUT.VDL201911) fell another $0.012, or 0.73%, from Friday and settled at $1.640. The LAX to SEA contract (FUT.VLS201911) shed 0.24% and ended the session at $2.047. The futures forward curves for each of these lanes, FWD.VLD and FWD.VLS, also shifted lowed pointing to further freight rate pressure out of LAX.
