Freight Futures data to watch today: Spot National Contract and Forward Curve
It was a relatively quiet session Wednesday in the Trucking Freight Futures markets, which ended the session unchanged to slightly higher. The spot National contract (FUT.VNU202003, FUTC1.VNU) ended fractionally higher to $1.365 per mile, driven by the East regional contract (FUT.VEU202003), which finished higher by 0.2% to $1.537. Both the West regional (FUT.VWU202003) and South regional (FUT.VSU202003) contracts ended Wednesday’s session unchanged at $1.378 and $1.179, respectively. As for the individual lanes, the CHI to ATL contract (FUT.VCA202003) rose almost 0.2% to finish at $1.767 while the ATL to PHL contract (FUT.VAP202003) saw a 0.3% bump to $1.829. The remainder of the lane contracts were steady on the day.
For the second consecutive session, trading focus remained with the April National contract (FUT.VNU202004) as 10 additional contracts (10,000 miles) changed hands at $1.375 per mile. This brings the total open interest in the contract to 20,000 miles (20 contracts). As companies are returning to the futures markets, two-way markets (bids and offers) are being made out through August 2020 (FWD.VNU), indicating liquidity is building.
