Good News...Did you feel it?

rollincoal

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
I felt like May was a slight improvement over April on my lanes working spot freight with a semi truck 53' dry van. But it was a poor month overall. I read an article that the Cass Freight Index claimed the month of May was the lowest a amount of freight business in 6 previous years of May data. Every month this year has been the lowest in 6 prior years except for February which was a marginally better than weak February 2011 numbers that were the lowest in that same time frame.

Not really seeing anything out here on the spot market with a semi truck that suggest any sort of economic growth. Normally hot periods of freight activity have been way down compared to previous 5 years I have been at it. Just my own little snapshot doesn't mean much in the big picture but for myself in a "hot freight area" 2 days ago (Thursday) there were crickets chirping almost all day when I was trying to book a load. Seen a lot of that for almost 2 years now. This year much worse than last.

No-one was wanting to pay much better than marginal rates except for a few places that were in need of trucks just seasonal summer demand. Most everything remains cheap out here. Today was not much better. Last year at this time, which was also a down year, my phone would ring nonstop from 7am to 7pm with brokers scrambling to find trucks. Especially on Thursday and Fridays.

Seems backwards anymore that the beginning of each week is where demand is the strongest. I don't think we have really hit bottom yet. The pain will have to get much more severe with higher fuel prices to squeeze the teetering, debt ridden players out of the game before things start looking up again, imo.
 
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