Donald Broughton, long-time analyst of freight markets, dies suddenly

Tim Broughton said Donald died suddenly at home on May 30.

Facebook also features expressions of sympathy from college friends and fellow graduates of his Missouri high school. Those tributes from Cape Central High School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri said Broughton had graduated from there in 1982.

Broughton was not known to have been ill. He spoke to the annual meeting of the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) in mid-April (this reporter was there and spoke briefly to him), and did one of his many CNBC appearances on May 12 where he gave a bullish outlook on the freight market.  

It appears from this link that Broughton was to deliver a freight market update to members of the TIA Tuesday. 

Broughton Capital, a research firm on trucking, freight and the supply chain, was founded in 2017. Broughton’s title was managing partner. 

Prior to starting that firm, Broughton worked on the research operations of several companies, including A.G. Edwards 

Broughton’s trademark in his many appearances was his bow tie. As his brother said in his post: “He did like his bowties.”

Sought for his expertise

John Larkin, a long-time freight industry analyst now with Clarendon Partners who knew Broughton well, liked to think of him, Broughton and Thom Albrecht, now the chief revenue officer of Reliance Partners, as three analysts who were “sought by institutional investors to be seasoned, knowledgeable, been around for decades, the kind of guys who were much more valuable than talking to the young kid on Wall Street who had been doing it for two years.”

“He was a warm person to be around,” Larkin said of Broughton. “He always had a kind word for me and anybody else in the industry. He loved being thought of as a sage.”

Larkin said any time he heard Broughton speak, “I always got a lot out of it. He was pretty thoughtful and forced you to think of the world in a different way.”

“He tried to use his intimate knowledge of freight transportation data to draw conclusions about the broader economy, and did about as good a job of that as anybody has ever done,” Larkin said.

Three amigos

Albrecht also said he saw a kinship among he, Larkin and Broughton. “We were the three amigos,” Albrecht said.

Albrecht hired Broughton into A.G. Edwards, based in St. Louis in Broughton’s home state. Broughton, according to Albrecht, was working for a beverage analyst who passed away.

“So Don was without a job, my junior analyst was going back to graduate school so I needed somebody pretty quickly,” Albrecht said. “With his background in distribution and transportation, and just his overall zeal, I ended up hiring him within a day or two.”

Broughton had “a passion for the industry,” Albrecht said. “He loved a good debate. He was very diligent with his numbers. Sometimes he would pull people the wrong way but he meant well all the time.”

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