ATA: Truck tonnage slips in June

Despite the sequential decline, year-over-year growth in the American Trucking Associations’ seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index continued.    Domestic truck tonnage slipped 0.4 percent in June compared with the previous month after a revised 0.4 percent uptick in May, according to the latest reading of the American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index.
   The index equaled 113.8 for the month, up 7.8 compared with June 2017 and the 7.4 percent year-over-year growth rate seen in May, but slowing slightly from April’s 9.9 percent year-over-year increase.
   The April growth followed two months of sequential declines, but represented the largest year-over-year increase in the index since October 2017.
   Through the first half of 2018, domestic truck volumes have now grown 7.9 percent compared with the same six-month period last year, more than double the annual growth rate of 3.8 percent seen for all of 2017.
   The ATA’s not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 116.3 in June, down 1.1 percent from the previous month’s reading of 117.6.
   ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said tonnage in the second quarter of 2018 grew 1.8 percent compared with the first quarter and 8.4 percent from the same 2017 period.
   “This robust growth fits with what is likely to be a very strong GDP reading for the second quarter,” he said. “I expect the growth in tonnage to moderate, but remain at very high levels in the months ahead.”
   According to the latest estimate from the Department of Commerce, U.S. GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018, the fastest pace since the second quarter of 2014 and a significant increase from a first-quarter growth rate of 2 percent and the 2.3 percent annual growth seen in 2017.