Ben Murphy spent his life using data and technology to push trucking—the industry he loved—into the future.
Shipping trends of 2019 are requiring established freight carriers to evolve their operational models. UPS is developing more super-hubs to facilitate growth through handling more high margin shipments.
How can air cargo and dry van spot market rates be related? Could the movement of these two seemingly unrelated rates provide more evidence the market is slowing?
December was a month of growing uncertainty and severe declines in the U.S. financial markets. The only thing that seems to be growing is the level of ambiguity in everyone’s outlook.
It’s a long road from the wellhead down to the fuel going into a truck. Who makes money along the way?
FreightWaves adds air cargo volume and pricing data to SONAR platform
MSU Supply Chain Management and FreightWaves will partner on curriculum, joint events, and transportation-related research projects.
Dry van rates hit air-pocket last month and lose altitude; but other indicators of freight economy still looking up.
Economic and freight indicators are mixed, with some suggesting a downturn is coming, but others pointing to continued growth.
The falling Purchasing Managers Index tends to be correlated with the general freight market, the Cass Freight Shipment Index illustrates this. Is it time for carriers to pull back?
On today’s episode, Chad Prevost talks to Market Expert Nick Austin and Sonar Account Executive Brad Guinane about weather, volume, tender market share, and tender rejections.
Record intermodal shipments on the rail for the second year in a row has deep implication for the trucking market into 2019. Trucking will benefit, at least partially, from Norfolk Southern’s latest decision.
Manufacturing leads first-party logistics growth because of the sector’s long-established supply chains. Retail is the next-largest contributor to first-party logistics growth through the impact of e-commerce.
Carriers lower rates heading to the West Coast this year as inbound container volumes flood the ports.
Carrier operating ratios continue to fall in October with a less volatile freight market.
The history books will say many things about 2018, but whatever else is recorded, it will go down as one of the strongest years for spot and contract pricing increases in the history of trucking in the U.S. Will that trend continue?
FreightWaves adds a real time news widget with twitter feeds and up to the minute financial and transportation new reporting.
The freight market has softened significantly in the last few months, but it is not due to a drastic reduction in volume.
On today’s episode, Chad Prevost and Michael Crosby talk about how to use SONAR to make proactive business decisions.
On today’s episode, Chad Prevost, Zack Strickland, and JP Hampstead discuss SONAR features: Outbound Tender Reject Index and Producer Price Index.
Merge Transit is a spot market agency that helps owner-operators and small fleets reduce inefficiencies in their business, and looks to automate the process of dispatching.
With the market data available on SONAR, we have ability to see all the ebbs and flows of freight movement happen in real-time.
The big oil news of the week was OPEC deciding to cut production in an attempt to stop the price of oil from dropping further. Carriers should be happy with this in the long run but gained a short term boost to margins in the meantime.
FreightWaves adds commercial vehicle accident injuries and fatalities in SONAR as well as adds regions to the TRI.
FreightWaves has launched FreightWaves NOW, a daily video feature that funnels the organization’s deep expertise and forward-looking insights into an accessible video format.
The spot market has been cooling over the past several months, but the players seem more uncertain than ever.
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.”
FreightWaves adds truck driver employment level estimates.
The benchmark price of domestic crude oil has dropped by 25% since early October. Historically, that would be a great thing for truckers, but with carriers operating more efficient trucks and oil production tied into the freight economy more than ever, it could be a warning sign for the broader freight market.
With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, drivers are spending less time on the road and more time at home. This is shrinking the availability of capacity in the market.
FreightWaves adds benchmark KPIs for asset based carriers and new weather mapping feature.
The Cass Truckload Linehaul Index reached another record high in October while the company’s Intermodal Price Index points to rising intermodal costs.
Ontario California has toppled the Atlanta market, the reigning capital of freight volume in the country. Surging volume is to blame. How long will the elevated volume last?
The freight market remains slow in most parts of the country except for one. Will it spill into other regions?
FreightWaves adds improves mapping and watchlist features while adding rail data.
Lead times increasing are a sign that shippers are taking capacity shortages seriously. Carriers and brokers that depend on spot market freight are left wanting.
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 freight market is showing the first signs of turning in over a month. Is this the start of retail season?
FreightWaves adds agricultural commodity and warehouse data to SONAR.
As we approach the holiday retail season, carriers and brokers have shifted their attention to the country’s major ports to capture upward volatility in trucking volumes.
East coast bound containers from China are getting a pre-holiday discount as shippers increase volume to North America in front of tariff increases.
The freight market continues to stabilize, but there should be a little fuel left in the tank for one more seasonal push before the holidays.
FreightWaves adds energy market related data to SONAR.
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.
Demand for flatbeds always drop off this time of year, but is this a sign of a broader industrial slowdown?
October of 2018 has been very different from the same month a year ago thus far. We have had 2 major hurricanes make landfall and the economy is still strong. So why does it seem so different?
SONAR’s signature index has a birthday; Ocean Network Express to lose $600M; oilfield service companies guide for tight margins in Q3; President Trump bails on coal industry incentives; pros and cons of blockchain in container shipping; spending 60,000 hours reverse-engineering a Tesla Model 3.
FreightWaves improves watchlist functionality with new heat mapping feature as well as improves searching with new categories and search bar improvement.
Outbound tender volumes have shot up 26% out of the Savannah market as the Southeast deals with hurricane Michael
Truckload volume continues to decline to annual lows after the first week of October. Freight volume is redistributing out west as Michael hits the Southeast U.S.
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.
FreightWaves triples the lanes available for the tender rejection indices along with diesel price and volume data. Highly regarded Institute for Supply Management indices have also been added to deepen the macro-economic section.
Two high school friends, one from Access America and one from JB Hunt, founded a successful brokerage in Knoxville full of supply chain management grads. And they love SONAR.
Freight Alley expands with the addition of Grupo Sesé, Carrefour turns to blockchain, Airbus will name its new CEO, and more in Today’s Pickup.
Washington D.C. metro topped the Canadian border and NYC as the least efficient places for a truck driver
Trucking volumes have dropped by 6% since the beggining of the month of October. Is this an indication that the market is slowing or is it a normal seasonal pattern?
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.
October is traditionally a slower month than the 4 preceding it in terms of volume. This year it has happened as soon as the calendar turned. This seasonal swing does not mean it will be a quiet fourth quarter for everyone.
FreightWaves adds additional risk management and compliance information in the most recent SONAR release.
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.
Since the ELD hard mandate went into effect, the trucking market has added 4% more truck capacity
China imposed a 25% import duty on US soybean imports in July and a domestic shortage of beans is now resulting in Chinese traders paying a higher price for Brazilian beans than what domestic crushers are paying, leading to speculation that China could again increase shipments from the US.
FreightWaves adds additional functionality to SONAR with tri-delta functionality on the Headhaul Index as well as the newly revised Trucks in Market, making it easier than ever to identify market disruptions.
Hurricane Florence has practically shutdown any outbound trucking activity out of the North Carolina coastal market
The smartest minds on Wall Street use charting analytics to quickly identify and then track trends in multiple data sets. Why? Because it works. And now freight professionals are learning how to do the same.
FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller, Chief Economist Ibrahiim Bayaan, and Senior Meteorologist Nick Austin discussed Hurricane Florence’s impact on freight, the general macroeconomic situation, and the upcoming IMO 2020 regulations on maritime fuel.
Charlotte and Atlanta see outsized inbound volumes as carriers move relief suppies into staging areas
Truckers are not singing the blues in Memphis (except on Beale Street): It’s currently the number one headhaul market in the U.S.
FreightWaves releases the Headhaul Index, a measurement of the discrepancy between inbound and outbound volumes.
K & L Freight has invested heavily in technology and data and grown 5x in the past two years. The next step is offering financial services to help their shipper customers hedge against spot market volatility.
Los Angeles volumes spiked just before Labor Day, but it doesn’t appear to be an artificial surge related to the holiday. In the next week we’ll start to see how the fall shipping season is shaping up.
For the trucking market, the third quarter has been stronger than the second, but no one would know it
It looks like the freight market is waking up from the long running summer doldrums, or is it just a byproduct of the pre-holiday shipper procrastination.
FreightWaves introduces new mapping features that make it easier to visualize data and heat maps across the freight market.
SONAR’s new index shows the cost difference for Asian exporters moving goods into East Coast or West Coast ports. When combined with trucking spot prices, the Panama spread helps explain recent shifts in trade flows.
Users that signup for a prepaid annual subscription to SONAR between now and the end of September 2018 will receive a LG 34” ultra wide curved monitor included.
Carriers and brokers have been talking about how slow August has been. Good news: According to our technical indicators, the market is about the turn back in their favor
Volume falls this week in the freight markets but rejections are flattening indicating there are still some spots where capacity is an issue.
Tender rejection rates for reefer trucks outbound from Houston have oscillated wildly all year. Even compared to other regional markets, shippers and carriers are having a difficult time matching capacity to volume.
The impact of Nordstrom’s anniversary sale on logistics costs, college football and freight, drone deliveries in Canada, and much more in Today’s Pickup.
Amazon has promised to name a location this year for the so-called HQ2 project, which it claims will ultimately employ 50,000 people. Using SONAR, from a freight perspective, we’re here to help.
Slync, an intelligent platform redefining multi-party interaction, automation, and collaboration throughout the supply chain , has agreed to a multi-year partnership with FreightWaves, the leading data and content source for the freight market.
The top five trucking origin points represent 18% of the volume in the freight market, according to a new index added to SONAR this past week
The recent slide in spot rates is typical for this time of year, according to FreightWaves’ CEO, and data indicates another peak before Thanksgiving is possible.
FreightWaves SONAR introduces market share indices to track relative volumes among US freight markets on a daily basis.
This week’s freight market continues the same patter toward stability, but volume remains steady as we move towards a more volatile time of year.
In the latest SONAR release users get a number of frustrations fixed, including chart scrolling, chart descriptions, and enhancements to the watchlist
Tesla’s auto production in Fremont and high container volumes out of Oakland are driving demand for trucks in the San Francisco market
Tesla’s auto production in Fremont and high container volumes out of Oakland are driving demand for trucks in the San Francisco market
With the recent chatter of a “housing crisis,” and the market reaching a “peak cycle,” we decided to take a closer look at what is going on.
FreightWaves has introduced tender volume indices, giving market participants real-time data on freight volumes by market
There will be a West Coast gold rush for trucking spot rates. SONAR data is suggesting that trucking spot rates will surge out of Los Angeles, reaching new highs.
In the latest SONAR release users get chart search enhancements, chart time series inputs, and a darker contrasting screen. Other updates include adding symbols to watchlist and ticker methodolgy tables.
Wall Street is in a panic over fears that the truckload sector has peaked. Wall Street is wrong. We break down the reasons using data from SONAR.
This week in freight showed more of the same with continued stabilization, but history tells us this may not last for much longer.
Introducing the latest additions to our SONAR platform: DAT lane pricing / Lane Tender Rejection Rates
Tender rejections continue to fall towards the May 2nd low, indicating that capacity is loosening in the market. If it reaches the critical level of 19.12%, it could mean that the rest of the summer will be disappointing for carriers that reported a bullish summer outlook.
