Freight And Truck Traffic Point To Recovery

Seeking Alpha ^ | 6-10-2010 | Edward Harrison

[blam]

Freight And Truck Traffic Point To Recovery

by: Edward Harrison
June 10, 2010

One common metric used by analysts to gauge how the economy is doing comes from freight or rail tonnage. If the economy is doing well, then more goods will be shipped via trucks and trains. This is exactly what is happening.

Andy Lees showed this via a few Bloomberg charts in a note earlier today. Of note:

The seasonally adjusted truck tonnage index is at its highest level since September 2008. US railcar container index which is just 4% off its all time high. The ConTex container ship charter index is up 97% since the end of the year. US oil demand is up up 7.3% y-o-y on a 4 week trailing basis. UBS also does a quarterly trucking survey that is now based on 3500 trucking companies. The latest survey in the US and Canada from earlier this month shows the biggest y-o-y improvement ever recorded in the survey’s 5 year history.

Lees says:

Freight rates (excluding the cost of fuel surcharges) rose y/y for the first time since Q3 2008 and 73% of truckers are seeing further increases in the recently completed bid season. 57% of truckers say they plan to grow the size of their tractor fleet providing the US economy continues to improve at its current pace. Only 1% plan to scale down.

Bottom line: the US economy is in recovery right now. How long this lasts depends on the pace of job growth and income gains.

[Buckeye McFrog]

In my area I do notice that Aldi and Dollar General (low-end bargain retailers), as well as CVS and Walgreens (big pharmacy chains that can bill insurance) are on a store building binge. Don’t know that this is a smart idea, but they’re doing it.

[Alberta's Child]

I think they’re taking advantage of attractive real estate prices and low interest rates while they can.

[Thermalseeker]

The next door neighbor at my farm is a Railroad Engineer. He works in the yard over in Chattanooga. I think he works for CSX. When I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago I asked him how his job was going because another neighbor had recently gotten laid off after 20 years working at a foundry over in Chattanooga. This guy said he’d not seen things this slow at anytime in the 17 years he’s worked for the railroad. He and several others that work in the yard are very concerned that they are about to be laid off, too.

[cookcounty]

I used to watch the daily “package count” at FedEx as aan indicator since it was reported within hours. Unfortunately, they stopped daily reporting around 1990

[rockinqsranch]

As I mentioned a couple of months ago the truckload freight has picked up, and the Nationwide carrier my wife works CSR for is scrambling to keep up with the demands.

Obama, and his wrecking crew have done everything wrong to right this economy as I see it, so I’m confused.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that FREE market forces are substantially more powerful than the Obama wrecking crew.

[Yankee]

Rail Traffic Softens In May

I am a railfan (one of those strange people that you see taking pictures of trains). I live a few miles from two CSX main lines in middle GA.

One line, which links Atlanta with Birmingham, Mobile and New Orleans is down to 8-9 trains every 24 hours versus a peak of 24 trains back in '08.

The other line, Atlanta-Waycross-Jacksonville and all points in Florida, is also down precipitously from it's peak volume in '07-'08.

I am not seeing loaded cars of building materials that would indicate that any kind of sustained recovery is underway.

The solid trains of 89 foot automobile carriers are not running as frequently.

I see many container trains running with only one container per well car as opposed to doublestacked.

Finally, substantial numbers of CSX-owned locomotives remain in storage at Waycross as well as other locomotive shops system-wide. In '08 there were large numbers of leased locomotives being used as CSX's own fleet was unable to cover all trains being run.

[blam]

From March 9, 2010

Shippers Rattled By Shortage Of Ships Due To Trade Surge

[blam]

Chinese Export Rumors Were True

[ridesthemiles]

Neighbor is a owner-operatot. He has been running his truck for over 20 years.

Up untiol March, he was pulling a load a week of potatoes from N Nevada to So Calif.

Now, all the calls he gets for hauling won’t even pay for his fuel.

The tonnage might be getting hauled, but who is losing money on the deal?

He cannot run his truck at a loss. Are these loads only going to large companies who are willing to post losses for now?

[BfloGuy]

Shipping statistics represent past manufacturing and future consumption. They’re interesting — but I don’t know how predictive they are.

[BluH2o]

Spent a number of years in the trucking industry as a operations and later sales executive. T/L and LTL volumes are definitely a factor as a barometer for the economy. When the economy is going south you see it in the trucking industry months before you read/hear about a sluggish economy in the media. Conversely, when the dynamics shift to a more robust economy it works the same way.

[tanknetter]

Obama, and his wrecking crew have done everything wrong to right this economy as I see it, so I’m confused.

Arthur Laffer (of the Laffer Curve) explained this (not directly, but this is certainly an example of what he wrote about) in an OpEd in the WSJ a couple days back.

The Bush tax cuts are going to expire at the end of the year. Businesses, and a lot of consumers who still have disposable income, are aware of this and are taking action in advance of it. The result is a definite uptick in economic activity.

The belief is that this uptick is only temporary, and will quickly reverse once the tax increases hit in early 2011. Not only reverse, but drive the economy back into recession as consumer/business spending dries up, with cascading impacts across the economy and with government revenues.

Think of what happened with Cash for Clunkers (surge of incentive-driven car buying followed by a crash once the incentive went away), for instance, and apply to the entire economy.

[rockinqsranch]

I remember the A. Laffer article from a couple of days ago, but I was in a hurry, and didn’t read it. Thanks for posting.