Loadsmart First Look Weekly Market Recap for Sep 8 – Sep 13.

Loadsmart’s Carrier Sales Manager, Jimmy Fahey, breaks down what happened last week and what to expect this week in the freight market for less than 60 seconds.

This is a weekly series that brings the insights we use to get your shipments from A to B from our carrier sales floor to your home office.

What we saw last week

• We had a slight reprieve early in the week, as volumes dipped about 20% as shippers pulled shipments forward before the long weekend; however, the market jumped back in the latter half of last week as volumes rose to 13740.38 and OTRI came back to 26.56.
• Friday ended the 72 hour CVSA safety blitz, which focused on driver requirements. Nearly 9,000 inspectors throughout North America conducted inspections and roughly 17 commercial vehicles were inspected every minute. Historically, the blitz had caused capacity to tighten as drivers stayed off the road. In year’s past, 1179 were placed OOS due to HOS violations, which was 37.2% of of the 3,173 drivers placed OOS last year.
• The National Retail Federation reported container imports in August are expected to be higher than originally forecasted, up 4.6% YoY vs. previous estimates of 3.6%. August’s estimates of 2.06M TEUs, marks the highest level of monthly imports since 2006. This has caused analysts to raise estimates for the remaining peak season months from August to Oct.
• Truckstop’s Market Demand Index hit an all time high of 102 (implying there are 102 available loads for every truck), which eclipses the 2018 peak of 78. As we move into peak retail season, anticipate that number to continue to rise.

What to look out for this week

• This week IS National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, which took a more prominent role this year, considering the crucial role drivers have played in the pandemic. Hope everyone remembers to honor all drivers.
• With the OVTI being a seven day moving average, the index is distorted for the week following a national holiday, such as Labor Day. As such, weekly comparisons are near meaningless. Coming of the post holiday and CVSA, anticipate OTVI and OTRI to spike back up back towards pre-Labor day
• Senate Democrats scuttled a scaled-back GOP coronavirus rescue package of $650 billion last Thursday, likely ending hope for relief before the November elections.

Stay Up to Date

With all the latest weekly and monthly market insights on our Youtube page. Questions about anything you saw? Email sales@loadsmart.com and let’s talk about how we can help you take advantage of real-time market conditions.