Loadsmart First Look Weekly Market Recap: Sep 21 – Sep 27.

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.

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

What We Saw Last Week

• Trevor Milton was ousted from Nikola last week, while former GM exec Steve Girsky took the helm as chairman of Nikola. Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor has announced plans to being testing imported heavy-duty fuel cell trucks in California next year
• California bans the sales of fossil fuel-powered vehicles starting in 2035 and orders medium and heavy-duty trucks to be zero-emission by 2045 where possible. 
• With the rise in e-commerce brought on by the pandemic, retailers and manufactures have been paying 29% more on average in the spot market. With a rise in tender rejections as carriers look to the spot market for lucrative spot loads, Amazon has sought assistance from large trucking fleets, offering prices that are unusually high for them in order to assist with volumes ahead of the holiday rush.  
• Tropical storm Beta made landfall along the mid Texas coast last week, the 9th tropical storm or hurricane to make landfall this year, tying a new record. The storm brought flash floods across parts of Texas and Louisiana already reeling from Hurricane Laura. The clean up from the storms are expected to top $1.4billion and we are still in the middle of peak season for hurricanes. 

What To Expect This Week

• The wildfires in the West Coast are still raging, but fire fighters are starting to bring some of the fires under control. The fires have caused a capacity constraint in the Pacific Northwest though. Additionally, we are entering into peak season for the area, while tender rejections in Twin Falls, ID and Salt Lake City, UT are at 71.48% and 38.67% respectively.
• EOQ and EOM are right around the corner, expected capacity to be limited as shippers look to push product off their docks to close quarterly books.
• Reefer tender rejections continue to climb and surpass 41% nationally. Anticipate rejection rates to continue to climb as demand will increase with October historically being the start of protect from freeze season.

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.