Freight volumes recover from Easter lull as volumes are flat from a year-over-year perspective. Comparing load volumes is not the whole story, however.
National freight volumes took a nosedive this week as Easter had a decent impact on the freight market, but how much of the drop is related to the holiday?
Volumes are flat year-over-year, and after a brief period of disruption the freight market has stabilized. Container volumes that have fueled the port cities freight, may be due to soften in the coming months.
Market volumes remain strong from a year-over-year perspective, driven by the continued strength of the West. What does this imbalance mean for the freight market as the busy season approaches?
L.A. volumes are propping up national freight volume but starting to fade. Are there any signs of another region emerging to take over for the West Coast?
Port container volumes, railroad volumes, and truckload volumes are all down year-over-year.
Large markets lost market share and reefer capacity loosened across the Midwest, but some markets look more favorable for carriers.
Access to data has improved market transparency, and recent spikes in volatility make the case that transportation costs must be hedged and de-risked.
Brokers at Arrive, Trident, and Avenger told us that capacity is flowing into Southeast markets, pushing down rates in that region, while the PNW and Midwest have tightened up significantly.
A surge in freight from Los Angeles has started to inflect the Dallas and Houston freight markets. Meanwhile, Harrisburg, PA’s strong headhaul score makes that Northeast market a diamond in the rough.
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.
West Coast ports post strongest volumes ever; Norfolk Southern is moving to Atlanta; flatbed tender rejections stay down; expect electric trucks in 2020; pregnant XPO Logistics warehouse workers suffer miscarriages; E2open buys Inttra; Iraq produces more oil but can’t rebuild.
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 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.
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.
Intermodal tightness has pumped the hub of hubs, the Chicago freight market especially on lanes paralleling major railroads; meanwhile a minor heatwave in St. Louis may have been behind a massive surge in reefer turndowns.
Elon Musk said that Saudi Arabia wants to buy Tesla; The New York Times wakes up to the driver pay issue; Amazon touts its private label brands ahead of the holiday season; lidar maker Quanergy appears to be struggling; Chicago’s mysterious surge in turndowns.
Sophisticated freight brokerages can widen their margins when rates soften faster than shippers realize, but now’s a risky time to quote spot loads, because historical data suggests the market is about to tighten again.
The rate of rejected loads coming out of LA inched upward, signaling that the July ‘mellowing’ period may be over. Container rates from China to North America’s West Coast stayed elevated for the second week in a row, and containership idle capacity is at 1%.
This morning, new SONAR indexes went live, giving a detailed look into load transmission acceptance by equipment type and length of all, and adding employment data for various transportation modes.
This morning, new SONAR indexes went live, giving a detailed look into tender rejections by equipment type and length of all, and adding employment data for various transportation modes.
Why, when capacity is so tight, is Chicago of all places overheated?
Turndowns and spot rates are surging out of Atlanta on strong container volumes from Savannah and Georgia onion harvests. Capacity is so tight nationwide that even small movements in demand are having outsize effects on tender rejections and prices.
Donald Broughton says that the oil boom and Trump tax cuts are driving a young industrial expansion cycle; shippers continue to adjust supply chains to minimize transport costs; Google invests $550M in Chinese e-commerce site JD.com; China may put a tariff on US oil imports; Brazil’s trucker strike shattered economic growth outlooks; Asia-North America container rates are softening.
The recent clarification of personal conveyance rules have left some questions in the market about the expected impact. We go back to the data to make our own assessement.
A magnesium fire in an automotive parts supplier caused F-150 production shutdowns in Dearborn, MI, and Kansas City, MO, earlier this month. The sudden drop-off in demand for freight in those two markets is reflected in our turndown indices.
Trucking contract rate increases tamp down volatility; Nikola Motor Company returns deposits on truck orders; Hunter Harrison was one of the highest paid CEOs in 2017; Xi Jinping takes the stage to defend Chinese trade practices; container lines enter bid season with a weak hand.
Turndowns inbound and outbound of Charleston are gradually rising in tandem, indicating a healthy market. Spot rate movements will depend on where capacity is positioned once port traffic ramps up.
There has been a lot of hype surrounding the arrival of the hard enforcement period of ELD carrier compliance, but according to the Tender Rejection Index it has mostly been a non-factor to the overall freight market.
What happens with increased turndowns in this context is that carriers don’t want to go inbound into a place—in this case, Philadelphia—as they assess the cost of outbound.
Used truck prices strengthen; trailer orders go crazy; Arizona suspends Uber self-driving; Canadian National trades at 52-week lows; aftermath of Harvey still affects Houston tanker traffic; Philadelphia freight market is heating up.
As record setting winter weather continues to disrupt all forms of transportation in America, the Northeast sees dramatic declines in freight acceptance.
Container traffic into the Port of Seattle is down 22.6% YTD, starving the city of freight. Trucking spot rates have cratered, and turndowns have dropped 75% since their peak in October as carriers are forced to accept lower prices.
