Welcome to October’s Monthly Episode of Loadsmart First Look. This is a monthly series that dives into the domestic freight market, the economy as a backdrop to the trucking industry, and the latest developments and technologies that are changing the supply chain.

This month Jim Nicholson, VP of Operations at Loadsmart is joined by Kyle Lintner, Partner and Managing Director of K-Ratio to—among many things— discuss leveraging principles from the financial markets to improve efficiency in the freight industry, what a central clearinghouse for freight transactions would mean for the industry, and how universally agreed upon rate transparency might improve the flow of goods through the supply chain.

Lightning Round:

Jim: Outbound tender volume index will stay above 15,000 for 2020

Kyle: False, but not by much

Jim: Tender rejections will drop below 20% by the end of the year

Kyle: False

Jim: Tender rejections will drop below 10% in Q1

Kyle: That is a really tough one. False, but very very close.

Jim: Capacity in the marketplace will end up lower than where we went into it this year. So capacity will drop

Kyle: No, false.

Jim: Shippers will opt to move a smaller percent of their volume in contracts

Kyle: They will not put more stuff into spot, even though sometimes I think it does, flex contracts, option contracts, spot business whatever you call it, they’re going to run it on all three dedicated

Jim: Hottest trend in 2021 will be…

Kyle: More visibility

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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 Director of Carrier Sales, Jordan Abrams, 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

–  Last week was exciting. We watched volume and rejections sky rocket, but it proved to be just another seasonal spike. National tender rejections started off strong at over 27% but decreased as the week moved on. 

– Along with the rejections increase earlier last week, well, so did Average LH rates as reported by Truckstop.com. We have already seen a 6 cent increase since November 1st

– Last week felt like the true kick off to this holiday season. We expect the coming week to be a challenge. It’s tight out there folks.

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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

• Bullish container news continued to pour in over last week, as equipment lessor Triton International reported Q3 2020 results and described Q4 2020 demand for equipment as exceptionally strong. Market conditions are expected to remain strong at least thru early next year. Chinese factory capacity is booked thru 2020 and market conditions are expected to remain tight thru Chinese New Year.
• A powerful snowstorm has been moving thru several states since Wednesday and intensified over the weekend. Roads stretching from California to Colorado, Montana and the Dakotas will be dangerous for drivers. Blizzard-like conditions will be heading through parts of Montana with wind gusts reaching 35-40mph and snowfalls anywhere from 2-14 inches depending on the elevation. Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada region will also affect drivers along I-80 and Highway 50 in the area. Outbound tenders have increased in some markets along the storm’s path and it is possible that many drivers will shift to other markets over the coming days to avoid the storms.
• The US economy added 638,000 jobs in Oct., pushing the unemployment rate a full percentage point lower, to 6.9%, even as a resurgent virus threatened to slow future hiring. The rate, less than half of April’s level, is still almost twice as high as before the pandemic struck in March. Further clouding prospects is the expiration of extra unemployment benefits with no added federal stimulus yet in view. 
  • Long-term joblessness jumped, with the number of Americans unemployed for 27 weeks or more rising 1.2mil to 3.6mil. 

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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 Director of Carrier Sales, Jordan Abrams, 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

National Tender rejections continued to hover at the 25% mark. VOTRI sat strong at 24% while RFR rejections steadily decreased through the week from 44% to 41%

That wasn’t the only drop we saw. TS 7 day Avg Linehaul Rate dropped $0.12 to $2.83/mi since the first week in october. This is the most significant drop in Avg Linehaul since early May. With volumes and rejections easing, rates seem to settle. 

Let it snow! We had winter weather N TX, OK and in the upper midwest Causing capacity constraints heading into the EOM. Freeze protection is starting early and is expected to roll south as temps continue to drop. Expect RFR capacity to continue its tightness!

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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, 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

• New jobless claims fell close to their lowest level last week since the pandemic began. First time flings in the week ended Oct. 17 totaled 787,000, above pre-pandemic norms but below the almost 7 million claims during a week in March when the virus prompted widespread closures.
• White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are closing in on a nearly $2 trillion dollar deal to provide another round of stimulus checks, reinstate extra weekly unemployment benefits and extend aid for small businesses, airlines, and state and local governments. This all comes as COVID-19 cases rise to their highest levels since the middle of summer and cooler weather will hamper the ability for outdoor activities. However, if the White House and House Speaker Pelosi reach an agreement, a vote would most likely have to wait until after the election
• Union Pacific doubled it’s surcharge on small shippers sending excess contract cargo out of the Seattle market from $500 to $1000 per container starting Oct. 25th. The upcharge comes three months after it began charging fees in the LA and Stockton-Oakland markets, but the surcharge has done much to lower demand as UP’s 3rd quarter volumes jumped 24% from Q2, the largest quarter over quarter increase in the company’s history

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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 Director of Carrier Sales, Jordan Abrams, 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

We are finally starting to see some semblance of stabilization in the market. National Tender rejections continued to drop last week to the mid 25% and VOTRI decreased a smidge while ROTRI held steady at the 43%.

That being said, don’t be fooled by the term stable. Volumes remain strong with seven straight weeks above 15k and 52% above 2019, but even volumes have started to stabilize and we expect them to continue through November.

Hurricane Delta seemed to put most of its hitting power into LA, but not much elsewhere. Lake Charles and New Orleans were a challenge to move to or through due to flooding and road closures.

What To Expect This Week

The gap between average contract rates and spot rates continues to grow. Currently, average contract rates sit at $2.27 while spot sits at $2.44/mi. This is causing more and more carriers to give back their contracts and renegotiate their lanes as we head into the final months of the year.

SoCal, E PA, NJ maritime shipments continue to be strong. These markets make up 14% of the domestic freight market (S Cal 8% and Newark/E PA 6%). As long as these markets are hot, expect capacity to be limited and rates to be high

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.

Welcome to September’s Monthly Episode of Loadsmart First Look. This is a monthly series that dives into the domestic freight market, the economy as a backdrop to the trucking industry, and the latest developments and technologies that are changing the supply chain.

This month, as freight demand and volumes exceed the 40-year record highs we saw in 2017 and 2018, our VP of Operations, Jim Nicholson, brought in a little help from Brent Hutto, Chief Relationship Officer @ Truckstop.com to discuss the boom bust and boom again market.

Jim: It’s been a wild year with the pandemic and the shift in consumer behavior that’s thrown freight markets out of whack. I’m curious to hear what you guys are seeing at Truckstop.

Brent: I’ve been alive for 53 years and you see a lot of ups and downs and the old saying is “may you live in interesting times” and certainly we are living in interesting times. Who would have thought that we would have seen something more different or better than 2017/2018 that was a 40 year high in an industry. That was remarkable – people set their careers and retirements on how well they did in 2017/2018 and who would have thought that something would exceed that and we are at that point and have been for the last 7 or 8 weeks above 2017/ 2018 40 year historical highs, which is remarkable considering where we were in March and where the marketplace has come from. 

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We’re in the business of connecting the logistics industry, but that doesn’t stop at connecting shipments with carriers. This is our second episode of On the Road with Loadsmart, a platform to connect the industry to the stories that matter, inspire, and are essential for giving credit to the unsung heroes of the road we have the privilege to work with every day.

In this episode Aaron from Loadsmart sits down with Matt Deaton from Lightning Transportation to discuss how they’re dealing with growing a driver pool of 375+ drivers to keep up with the recent shifts in demand and volume.

Aaron: To dive right in, do you want to tell us a little bit about Lightning Trans?

Matt: We are a drayage service provider all over the East Coast. I work with our operations teams, sales, business development, working directly with our customers. We’ve been in business since about 1987. We started with one terminal in Baltimore and we’re up to about eight terminals now.
All the major ports and rails and actually we were looking to expand this year.

Right now we’re up to about 375 and counting with the shift in volumes recently coming out of COVID-19 we’ve got a nice, strong pipeline of drivers that we’re trying to rapidly increase that count as we speak to meet the demand and the recent shifts in volumes.

Aaron: Do you want to tell us a little bit about what your main challenges were at the beginning of the year and when the East Coast shut down and a lot of the ports did what those goals and challenges transitioned to?

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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

840,000 Americans applied for first-time unemployment benefits last week, a number that is highly relative to pre-pandemic levels and worse than any week of previous recessions. Jobless claims are down from their peak in the spring, but have remained stagnant since the summer months and refuse to drop further.

Lawmakers haven’t made much progress in working out a compromise for a new stimulus deal, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected a standalone package for airlines without a larger deal in place. Carriers last week furloughed more than 30,000 workers and anticipate further service cuts if more aid doesn’t come soon.

Reefer rejections continue to climb, just ahead of the protect from freeze season. ROTRI is currently at 44.04 nationally, while some markets are seeing rejection rates in the 60’s and 70’s. With short supply, anticipate rejections to continue to climb in the coming weeks with increased demand and carriers looking to take advantage of the lucrative spot market rates.

As of 8am Friday morning Hurricane Delta (the 25th named storm of 2020 and 9th hurricane) was listed as a high-end Category 3 Hurricane and looking to make landfall over southwestern Louisiana. The hurricane is expected to bring 10-15in of rainfall in parts of the impact zone, with 6 to 12ft storm surges. Significant flash flooding, urban flooding and small stream flooding are expected over the weekend.

What To Expect This Week

FMCSA announced last Friday that they will be holding a session on Oct. 28th to hear petitions on broker transparency. Two of the petitions, from OOIDA and Small Business in Transportation Coalition, seek to strengthen brokers’ reporting requirements, while TIA is looking to eliminate outdated regulations and receive guidance on dispatch services to remove bad actors in the marketplace. We will look for more commentary this week on the announcement.

Both contract and spot rates continue to increase, while shippers are renegotiating their contracts earlier than at previous points. As consumers adjust to the new at-home lifestyle, there is increased consumer spending, which has caused an increase in truckload demand.

Current sentiment is that there will be a double digit rate increased into 2021. With the shift in increased consumer spending and the need to still restock, analysts are expecting import volumes to continue to remain strong well into 20201. As most of the trans-pacific volumes flow through Western US ports anticipate an increase in long haul freight into the market, which will further drive up rates and tighten capacity.

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.

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 Director of Carrier Sales, Jordan Abrams, breaks down what happened last week and what to expect this week in the freight market in less than 60 seconds as we head into October aka pumpkin season.

What We Saw Last Week

The EOM and EOQ push continued through the week. Capacity was limited and at a premium.  

We are now on two months of rejections over 25%. If you thought this was just a phase, snap out of it. This is the new normal. National Tender rejections sat sturdy and finished the week at just under 26%.

The story last week was Reefer rejections with a massive 6 point jump in the last two weeks. RFR rejections finished the week at just over 45%. RFRs are in limited supply and heading to the spot market to take advantage of the name your rate market. Expect it to be tight nationwide!

What To Expect This Week

Volume increases and market tightness still influenced by massive amounts of freight entering the market through the ports (Los Angeles, Newark). Expect SoCal and E PA to remain tight.

As we enter october expect late year produce to start ramping up!

We expect TS Linehaul continue at their historic levels currently at $2.93/mi but let’s not be surprised if the jump closer to $3.

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.

Shippers: ever wonder how much you would save if you shipped one day earlier or one day later? How about one week earlier or one week later?

Today, we’re introducing the Price Calendar tool in our Loadsmart Transit product, which allows you to answer those questions in seconds. When you quote a shipment with us, besides the rate for the date you selected, you’ll automatically see rates for a 12-day range. See how it works 👇

The feature will highlight the date with the best rate, but you can scroll side-to-side by clicking on the arrows to identify cost savings for other dates near your original selection.

Like what you see? Simply click on the pick up date you want and start booking. No additional steps required! And if you used a facility from your address book, you’ll just need to confirm the information saved.

In short, this allows our shipper customers to more easily check rates for different dates, finding the best rate and maximizing cost savings in the blink of an eye.

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.

Loadsmart’s Director of Carrier Sales, Jordan Abrams, reminds us all to grab our sweaters and put the tea kettle because we’re heading into fall while breaking down what happened last week and what to expect this week in the freight market in 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

Coming out of the holiday week, volumes saw their traditional decrease but jumped back in line to current trends. Rejections consistently decreased through last week. 

Don’t be fooled by these decreases, volume is still at record levels, major markets still sit at 20% rejections and rates are at all time highs

Sally made landfall early in the week as a category 2 Hurricane. Capacity was limited within S LA, AL and GA as capacity was allocated away from the storm. 

What To Expect This Week

The Wildfires in the West Coast are causing some capacity constraints within the PacNW. Expect finding capacity to be a challenge.

With EOQ and EOM around the corner we expect much of the usual. Capacity will be limited and Shippers will push volume to close the quarterly books.

Take last week’s rejection decreases with a grain of salt – As we enter into the back half of September. Retail and seasonal produce will be picking up.

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.

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.

Loadsmart’s Director of Carrier Sales, Jordamn Abrams, 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

• Really? Much of the same – Tender Volumes continue to increase and reaching 56% greater levels than last year.
• Rejections are at 26% lead the way with RFR rejections sitting just under 39%
• RFR freight is tight across the nation 
• Tropical storm Laura had less of an impact to the freight market as expect. Although S LA did take on major damage with other markets taking on flooding and road closures.

What to look out for this week

• Labor Day week is here. Expect a whole weeks worth of freight to ship in four days along with this years DOT Road check week. We call this a Double whammy! Expect capacity to tighten and rates to increase.
• The major markets will be tight especially southern call, ATL, eastern PA and Houston.
• Don’t take your eye off the weather forecast caused Hurricane season continues through November. Retail season soon follow  so don’t expect capacity to loosen anytime soon!

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.