The Stockout

Michael Baudendistel Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Shippers called the first half better than carriers

Echo surveyed 5,000 carriers and shippers on the freight market On Tuesday, Echo and FreightWaves co-hosted a webinar that featured Sean Burke, Echo chief commercial officer, and Jay Gustafson, Echo executive vice president of brokerage operations. The presentation discussed the results of a survey conducted at the end of last year, with more than 5,000 […]

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Michael Baudendistel Thursday, May 29, 2025

TACO in container ship data

Ocean carriers are maintaining pricing power This chart of ocean spot rates has moved in a manner similar to stock market averages. (Chart: SONAR) By now, most of us have seen memes about a new and creative way to say “Buy the dip,” which is, of course, Trump Always Chickens Out, or TACO. In addition […]

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Michael Baudendistel Thursday, May 22, 2025

Trade War Command Center quantifies import turmoil

‘Air pocket’ makes its way to port and intermodal volume SONAR Trade War Command Center In April, numerous U.S. ports set records for import volume. The SONAR Trade War Command Center application shows expected steep month-over-month declines in import volumes based on a 14-day moving average of bookings by date of departure. Most notably, volume […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Freight industry braces for drop in demand

Tender volume takes a dive Tender volume, a measure of how often shippers request carriers to move loads, has trended down in recent days. (Chart: SONAR) Up until the past few days, for all the turmoil in trade policy and the financial markets, SONAR had not been showing much change in freight demand, as measured […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Freight market shows additional signs of recovery

Tender rejection rate rises as holidays approach The tender rejection rate has risen steadily since early October despite tender volume declining. That implies that capacity is leaving the market, which is leading to a tighter freight market. (Chart: SONAR) Both truckload spot rates and tender rejection rates are indicating that the freight market is tightening. […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Retail, CPG industries brace for election results

Latest The Stockout show explores sock puppets This is how RFK Jr. sees U.S. food regulators. (Image: FWTV) On Monday’s The Stockout show, which focuses on topics relevant to shippers in the retail and CPG industries, Grace Sharkey and I discussed how the election could impact those sectors. If Trump is elected, the Federal Trade […]

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Michael Baudendistel Thursday, October 10, 2024

Brittain Ladd returns to The Stockout

Start your week with Brittain Ladd On Monday at 10 a.m. EDT, Grace Sharkey and I will again interview one of our favorite guests: outspoken independent consultant Brittain Ladd. The depth of Ladd’s expertise is impressive and spans companies and topics throughout the retail space and far beyond.  On his prior The Stockout appearance, his […]

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Michael Baudendistel Friday, May 24, 2024

Target appears to be losing on everyday items

Losing share in boring items Target shares have severely underperformed Walmart over the past three years. (Chart: Barchart.com, Inc.) Target spent much of Wednesday’s earnings call talking about recent promotions, new product introductions and holiday-related sales. Examples include Target Circle Days, back to school, the launch of a private label outdoor brand, pickleball gear introductions, […]

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Michael Baudendistel Friday, January 20, 2023

Startups target sugar reduction

Sugar reduction startups The consumer-packaged-goods-related article that I found most interesting this week was in FoodBusinessNews and it described three startups focused on developing very innovative sugar reduction alternatives. Here is a quick synopsis of those companies: Growing concern about sugar and salt intake Of course, there are easy ways for consumers to cut sugar. […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Consumers start to balk at higher prices

Growing evidence of ‘shopper rebellion’ Elasticities, or the negative change in sales volume in response to rising prices, has been one of the main topics in the CPG industry in the past year. Despite two consecutive years of steeply rising prices, including last year’s CPG price growth of upward of 15% or more in many […]

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Michael Baudendistel Saturday, October 22, 2022

5 SONAR charts that stand out

Sick of earnings season yet? It’s this time of the quarter when I miss my old position as a sell-side stock analyst the least. For those looking to get caught up on earnings, there is plenty of coverage on FreightWaves. For freight carriers, the themes so far have been loosening market conditions and the lack […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Nothing smooth about butter

High butter prices expected to persist Butter is currently second only to eggs for the title of most inflationary food item, up 25% year over year, compared to 13%-14% for the entire grocery category. Inventories of cold butter at the end of July were the lowest since 2017. Those stocks are usually built up early […]

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Michael Baudendistel Friday, August 26, 2022

As truckload rates fall, competition with intermodal intensifies

Consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs) and retailers are among the largest intermodal shippers. Today’s edition of The Stockout highlights data relevant for shippers that utilize rail intermodal or are looking to move in that direction for transportation savings and/or to promote dedication to environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.  Will there truly be a peak […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, June 29, 2022

General Mills expects supply chain disruptions to persist

General Mills’ supply chain disruptions to persist At a Wall Street conference earlier this month, Jonathan Nudi, General Mills’ president of North American retail, said, “We’re seeing 10 times the number of disruptions in our supply chain from an ingredient standpoint coming into our plants than we ever experienced before. And this gets really challenging […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Why the Kellogg split makes sense

Kellogg splitsville As I am sure you’ve seen, the big CPG news Tuesday was that Kellogg will become three separate companies. Management will focus on the snacks/international business (I’ll call it Snack Co.) and plans to spin off the North American cereal business (Cereal Co.) and the plant-based businesses (Plant Co.) into separate entities, with […]

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Michael Baudendistel Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Rail service becomes bigger political football

Ranked 39th on the Transport Topics list of top brokerage firms, Axle Logistics takes a consultative and streamlined approach to your shipping needs. Email sales@axlelogistics.com to connect with the team today!  Bipartisan agreement that rail service is poor  As described by FreightWaves’ Joanna Marsh, a group of 19 senators from 13 states wrote a letter […]

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