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Donald Broughton named Chief Market Strategist for TransRisk

Founder and Principal of Broughton Capital will provide market commentary, data analytics

TransRisk, the creator of the first regulated trucking futures contracts and a pioneer of solutions designed to allow transportation industry participants to efficiently manage price risk in the North American freight transportation market, has added nationally recognized transportation markets leader Donald Broughton to its team.

Broughton, Founder and Principal of Broughton Capital, has been named TransRisk’s Chief Market Strategist. He will provide both ongoing market commentary and outlook, as well as streaming data analytics to TransRisk subscribers.

 Donald Broughton frequently speaks on industry topics on national media outlets.
Donald Broughton frequently speaks on industry topics on national media outlets.

Broughton is the latest leading industry expert to join the TransRisk team, joining an impressive group of transportation and capital market individual that includes John Larkin, Managing Director at Stifel; Thom Albrecht, President of Sword & Sea Transport Advisors; Mark Walker, former C.H. Robinson executive; Glenn Goldberg, former President of Standards and Poors; and Eric Frank, former President of Thomson Reuters, among others. Collectively, the team has managed over $60 billion of truckload freight and continues to build solutions to help manage price risk and provide market transparency.

Broughton founded Broughton Capital in early 2017 after spending more than 20 years as a leading Wall Street analyst at two firms. With Avondale Partners, he served as the firm’s Chief Market Strategist and Senior Transportation Analyst for nearly a decade. Before that, Broughton spent more than 12 years at A.G. Edwards, where in addition to being the Senior Transportation analyst, he was the Group Leader of the Industrial Analysts and served on the firm’s Investment Strategy Committee.

Inside the transportation industry, Broughton is known for his quarterly tracking of trucking bankruptcies.  He is also known for his development of a ‘Value to Density Spectrum’ study of the tangible goods flow and its economic ramifications. Broughton’s equity research has earned acclaim and he is regularly quoted by both transportation publications and national media such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, and numerous other outlets. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Nightly Business Report, CNN, Fox, NPR, and other broadcast media.

Beginning in mid-2006, Broughton published reports warning of an impending economic slowdown and by early 2007 published reports explaining why a recession was coming. More recently, in July of 2010 and again in September 2011, his “Blue Car Report” explained why fears of a double dip were severely overblown and outlined why the market would have significant rallies by the end of those years. In February of 2015, he predicted that the power of the industrial recovery, led by fracking, was both under-estimated and coming to an abrupt end.

“Donald Broughton is one of the most accomplished analysts in the transportation sector. He has a knack for cutting directly to the facts and even when his opinion has not been popular, he has been proven correct on almost every single occasion,” said Craig Fuller, CEO and Founder of TransRisk. “Our goal is to help companies manage price and economic risk in the transportation industry. We are building solutions to help address the volatility and lack of transparency in the massive trucking industry. Donald’s addition to the team will help companies and participants in the market gain perspective on what is happening in real-time and interpret data from across the trucking landscape. I am excited to have Donald join our team.”

The Wall Street Journal has repeatedly recognized Broughton’s stock-picking abilities, ranking him in its “Best on the Street” survey for his picks in both the cargo and railroad industry groups. Forbes has highlighted his performance in its “When Picky Analysts Pick” series. He has been ranked by Zacks Investment Research and Starmine as a 5-Star Analyst (their highest ranking) based on the historical performance of his recommendations.  

A sought after public speaker, he is known for taking complicated economic and transportation industry issues and making them easier to understand, and more interesting as well.

TransRisk is developing products and solutions to provide price transparency and risk management to transportation industry professionals. Among these potential products are freight futures contracts that allow participants to hedge against rate volatility in the physical market. The financially settled contracts, which will feature no physical delivery or service, are meant to be a risk-management tool that participants can use to normalize price fluctuations.

For a more complete look at Broughton’s background and firm visit www.broughtoncapital.com.

Brian Straight

Brian Straight leads FreightWaves' Modern Shipper brand as Managing Editor. A journalism graduate of the University of Rhode Island, he has covered everything from a presidential election, to professional sports and Little League baseball, and for more than 10 years has covered trucking and logistics. Before joining FreightWaves, he was previously responsible for the editorial quality and production of Fleet Owner magazine and fleetowner.com. Brian lives in Connecticut with his wife and two kids and spends his time coaching his son’s baseball team, golfing with his daughter, and pursuing his never-ending quest to become a professional bowler. You can reach him at [email protected].