SONAR Sightings for June 15: Ontario, California, to Dallas, Japan to US, more

The highlights from Wednesday’s SONAR reports are below. For more information on SONAR — the fastest freight-forecasting platform in the industry — or to request a demo, click here. Also, be sure to check out the latest SONAR update, TRAC — the freshest spot rate data in the industry.

NTI as a point of reference

National Truckload Index is a daily look at how spot rates in specific lanes hold up in comparison to the national average, giving carriers and brokers an idea of which lanes to gravitate toward or avoid.

Wednesday’s National Truckload Index Daily: $2.81

Memphis, Tennessee, to Jacksonville, Florida: $3.53 a mile — 700 miles

• Carriers looking to make a chunk of change in only two transit days can make 72 cents a mile more than the national average in this lane.
• Outbound tender volumes for Memphis have seen 2.5% growth month-over-month (m/m), and rejections are currently at 7.5% — their lowest point since 2020.
• At the other end, Jacksonville’s outbound tender volume increased by over 5% in the past month, presenting increased opportunity to get loaded upon arrival. At the same time, rejection rates have climbed by nearly 500 basis points to 15.84%, placing upward pressure on rates out of the market.

Ontario, California, to Dallas: $2.63 a mile — 1,405 miles

• With longer hauls comes less pay per mile, but TRAC spot rates for this lane are currently only at 18 cents less per mile than the national average.
• Outbound tender volumes for Ontario have become relatively stable at 503.36, and with rejections at 3.4% — the lowest they’ve been since the start of the pandemic, carriers are willing to accept contract rates as fuel surcharges partially insulate them from extremely high diesel prices.   
• At the end of the road, the Dallas market is seeing 4.5% development m/m in outbound tender volumes, with rejections currently at 6.8% — approximately where they have been the past couple of months.

Watch: Carrier update

Maritime lane to watch: Japan to U.S.

As the United States begins to look elsewhere for its imports from the Asian Pacific region, Japan may be one to watch closely.

Behind China, we of course have Mexico and Canada as our biggest importers due to location and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but Japan is behind them and directly behind China in terms of global trading partnerships.

Since June 15, 2021, maritime twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) imports to the U.S. from Japan have increased 90.4%, almost doubling in the past year alone.

It is important, however, to note the volume differences between the two countries. In the past month, over 919,000 TEUs have gone through U.S. customs clearance from China, while Japan has only cleared just over 17,000.

Although, with the Biden administration’s newest Indo-Pacific Economic Framework — aimed at giving countries an alternative to China and allowing the U.S. to establish more of a foothold in the region — we could begin to see more imports from countries like Japan, India and the Philippines, among others.