The FreightWaves Pricing Power Index uses analytics and data from FreightWaves’ SONAR platform to analyze the market and estimate the negotiating power for rates between shippers and carriers based on eight key market indicators. Weekly updates can be found at https://www.freightwaves.com/news/category/news/insights/pricing-power-index.
The gap between current levels of freight demand and those of 2019 is narrowing, casting doubt on the market’s ability to sustain growth.
The consumer will be key to resolving the present tension in freight demand’s future, but consumers continue to be predictably unpredictable.
Market conditions will likely become a bit more favorable before they get much worse.
Strangely enough, tender volumes are abiding by seasonal trends.
Strangely enough, tender volumes are abiding by seasonal trends. The first quarter of 2022 was unusually active as shippers tried to get ahead of disruptions to capacity, which historically tightens in the spring.
With the inflation-squeezed consumer running through their discretionary budgets, freight demand is in a precarious state.
Consumers’ appetite for discretionary spending has been usurped in favor of squirreling away income into personal savings.
Volumes have continued their recovery from the winter holiday season with a surge in pent-up freight demand unleashed into the market. Naturally, since last week’s data was affected by holiday noise, the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) faces some absurdly easy comps on a weekly basis. Even still, accepted tender volumes remain below their levels of 2021 and ’22 for the time being.
Volumes have continued their recovery from the winter holiday season with a surge in pent-up freight demand unleashed into the market. Naturally, since last week’s data was affected by holiday noise, the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) faces some absurdly easy comps on a weekly basis. Even still, accepted tender volumes remain below their levels of 2021 and ’22 for the time being.
For all intents and purposes, the month of December has only three weeks of freight activity, as the final week from Christmas to New Year’s is effectively null. In years prior, freight demand has fallen throughout the month before bottoming out in that final week. So far, December looks to be following seasonal trends, which is to say that, while shippers’ activity is winding down, this movement is not alarming by itself. Rather, the gap in freight demand between 2022 and ’21 (or even ’20) is the main symptom of current ailments.
