Truck drivers as a driver of CPG sales
(Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)I was recently tasked with filling in as a temporary expert for The Stockout newsletter. It turns out that drivers are conveniently placed at truck stops that offer a litany of consumer packaged goods. Can you name one sector that has outperformed the S&P 500 by about 3,100 basis points (bps) year to date? It turns out the convenience store (C-store) industry is that sector. This sector for CPG is noted as a less...
Chart of the Week: US Customs Maritime Import TEUs – Port of Los Angeles, Port of New York/New Jersey SONAR: CSTEU.USLAX, CSTEU.USNYC
The volume of TEUs clearing customs at the Port of New York and New Jersey has doubled versus this time last year, while import volumes have been cut in half at the Port of Los Angeles. Cost effectiveness is driving shippers to take advantage of the savings of going directly to the East Coast, where most of the consumption occurs. This action has led to a rapidly...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/what-does-east-coast-import-shift-mean-for-domestic-transportation
FreightWaves’ Future of Supply Chain summit is being held this week in Northwest Arkansas, the epicenter of North American supply chains. If you aren’t able to attend, you are welcome to tune into our free live stream that will carry all of the content from the main stage. The event kicks off on Monday at 9 a.m. ET.
At the event, we will be introducing several new data products, including a new national index that is assessed and published every day (NTID.USA). This is based on the FreightWaves...
Freight is moving shorter distances, compounding the effects of waning demand
Chart of the Week: Long haul Tender Volume Index, Tweener haul Tender Volume Index, Short haul Tender Volume Index, City haul Tender Volume Index – USA SONAR: LOTVI.USA, TOTVI.USA, SOTVI.USA, COTVI.USA
Long-haul trucking demand has eroded at a faster rate than loads moving less than a half a day’s travel, compounding the easing process in the market. Since March 1, the long-haul outbound tender volume index (LOTVI) —...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/trade-war-era-pattern-reemerging-in-trucking
The Cass Freight Shipments Index shows wider ranges with less predictability over the past six years
Chart of the Week: Cass Freight Shipments – USA SONAR: CFIS.USA
After enjoying one of the most stable stretches in modern history from 2010 to 2015, the freight market has been on a wild ride worthy of a theme park centerpiece. After six years of “anomalous” behavior, it is probably time to consider the “normal” five-year period in the first half of the 2010s the anomaly.
The Cass Freight...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freight-market-volatility-is-the-new-old-normal
Trucking is a massively cyclical industry.
How is it possible to have a “driver shortage” and a capacity glut at the same time?
This is a common refrain that I hear when talking about a slowing freight market. The reality is that the “driver shortage” doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
First, we need to differentiate between the freight market and trucking companies. Trucking companies participate in the freight market, but are not the “market.”
Trucks being loaded at a dock....https://www.freightwaves.com/news/what-causes-the-booms-and-busts-of-the-trucking-cycle
I have been around trucking for 42 years – literally my whole life. My grandfather and father began trucking companies. I began to learn about trucking when I was very young, because I grew up in a trucking family. Family dinners and vacations revolved around trucking. It would be unusual for my family to go through a single dinner without something about trucking coming up.
I learned about economics from my father, but rather than talking about the broader economy, his lessons about the...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/trucking-is-a-commodity-service-is-not
Inconsistency is the only consistency in transportation over the past 4 years
Chart of the Week: Van Contract Initial Report, Van Outbound Tender Reject Index, Truckstop.com Average Van Spot Rate – USA SONAR: VCRPM1.USA, VOTRI.USA, TSTOPVRPM.USA
Trucking contract rates were still inflating as of early March, according to FreightWaves’ Van Contract Rate Index (VCRPM1), but spot and tender rejection rates are now in a free fall. The national average spot rate according to Truckstop.com has dropped...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freight-market-needs-lithium-during-rapid-swing-toward-bipolar-low
The most polarizing term in trucking is the “driver shortage.”
To drivers, the term often gets them fired up and angry – it makes them feel as if they are a commodity.
The trucking industry is one of the most cyclical industries on the planet; it goes through booms and busts.
Until just a few weeks ago, the industry was dealing with a significant capacity shortage. This occurs when there aren’t enough trucks available for dispatch to match all of the freight in the market. In 2021, there was a...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/about-that-driver-shortage
FreightWaves, the industry-leading provider of data, analytics and news for global supply chains and logistics, and Tai Software, which offers a top emerging freight broker transportation management system (TMS), announce that FreightWaves Trusted Rate Assessment Consortium (TRAC) and SONAR Capacity Lane Score data will be available to Tai TMS customers that are also FreightWaves TRAC application programming interface (API) subscribers.
The FreightWaves/Tai partnership brings FreightWaves SONAR...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/use-freightwaves-sonar-with-tai-tms-to-maximize-margins