Freight Futures lane to watch today: East Regional Forward Curve
Trucking Freight Futures finished a relatively quiet day with the 11 markets unchanged to slightly mixed. The National spot month contract (FUT.VNU201909) was slightly down to $1.478 per mile. The remainder of the National forward curve, a settlement price display for all 16 trading contracts, was unchanged from yesterday (FWD.VNU). The forward curve for the East region (FWD.VEU) was slightly higher, while the forward curves for the West region (FWD.VWU) and South region (FWD.VSU) were flat and lower, respectively. The forward curves in general appear to be reflecting normal freight seasonal patterns with the exception of the front portion of the East curve, which was impacted by Dorian.
A comparison of the East region forward curves from today, to a week ago, 30 days ago and two months ago, shows how market sentiment has changed. Sixty days ago (FWD60.VEU), the futures market sentiment was for higher rates in the East, with an average spread of about $0.15 per mile over the month (FWD30.VEU) and one week (FWD7.VEU) historical curves. On today’s curve (FUT.VEU), the impact of Dorian has not only caused the spike but has caused a sentiment shift upward by around $0.06 over last week’s curve from October 2019 through the spring of 2020.
