The highlights from Thursday’s SONAR reports are below. For more information on SONAR — the fastest freight-forecasting platform in the industry — or to request a demo, click here. Also, be sure to check out the latest SONAR update, TRAC — the freshest spot rate data in the industry.
There will be a slight alteration in the data presentation in SONAR Sightings. It will begin with a market to watch and then branch off to lanes to watch in regard to that market. The goal is to place carriers, brokers and shippers in the markets that will benefit them most or to inform them on which ones to avoid.
Market watch
This week seems to be all about the Northeast. And to continue the trend, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has been a market that has seen volumes and rejections rise in the last few days.
Harrisburg is the third-largest market in the country with an outbound tender market share of 2.7%. This is ironic because it is right next to the Philadelphia market, which is largely more of a consumer center.
As outbound tender volumes for Harrisburg are increasing 7.1% week over week (w/w), rejections are following. The Outbound Tender Rejections Index for Harrisburg has risen roughly 90 basis points (bps) in the past three days to reach 11.2% overall. This steady increase in volume and rejections signifies a tightening of the market that will push spot market rates coming out of Harrisburg into an upward trajectory.
With the Fourth of July holiday getting closer, shippers are beginning to extend their lead times within the market in anticipation for network disruption. This is where we can expect to see shippers being more willing to pay higher rates to carriers that will be working during the holiday to secure capacity for their loads that need to ship. It’s bad news for brokers, good news for carriers.
NTI as a point of reference
The National Truckload Index is a daily look at how spot rates in specific lanes hold up in comparison to the national average, giving carriers and brokers an idea of which lanes to gravitate toward or avoid.
Watch: Roundtable chart roulette
Lane to watch: Harrisburg to Chicago
After the average spot market rates from Harrisburg to Chicago fell 31 cents through the month of April alone, they remained relatively consistent throughout the month of May, with slight dips through June. Currently at 56 cents less than the national average, this holiday weekend will most certainly affect it even more.
Brokers will try to maintain rates where they are if not lower since this lane will place carriers in a market with a substantial amount of certainty to book a load on the way out. As carriers retain pricing power, they will likely try and push rates up out of Harrisburg over the coming days.
However, while outbound tender volumes within the Chicago market are only up .3% w/w, rejections have ticked upward ever so slightly in the last couple of days to 6.5%. With a market as large as Chicago, ample opportunities present themselves for carriers to get loaded as well as push rates higher as capacity comes offline for the holiday.
