FreightWaves deepens bench, hires top equities analyst

Mike Baudendistel

Mike Baudendistel, a 13-year equities analyst with deep expertise in rail, intermodal, Jones Act and transportation OEMs, joins FreightWaves as a market expert. 

Prior to joining FreightWaves, Baudendistel was on the equities research team at Stifel, covering railroads, rail equipment, and truck equipment. His experience also touched the barge, intermodal, and truckload sectors. Prior to Stifel, Baudendistel served as an investment banking associate for Crowe Capital in Chicago. He is a CFA charterholder.

Market participants continue to seek fundamental market analysis of the transportation sector from a team with deep tribal and data-driven insights. Over the past two years, FreightWaves has become the go-to source for the global freight sector, and hiring Mike Baudendistel reflects a continued commitment to being the market leader. 

“I have worked with Mike Baudendistel for the past six years and his depth of expertise and relationships across his areas of specialization will be highly valuable to the FreightWaves team here in Chattanooga, Tennessee,” said John “JT” Engstrom, chief strategy officer of FreightWaves. “His multi-modal understanding of domestic and international freight markets will further propel FreightWaves’ ability to provide a comprehensive read on the fundamentals market.”

The goal in adding Baudendistel to FreightWaves’ growing team is to deepen customers’ understanding of intermodal, barge, and transportation equipment cycles and trends. His track record and deep tribal knowledge of these market trends will be a tremendous resource as the company builds out fundamental research, analysis, and datasets covering #freightallkinds. 

Baudendistel will join the FreightWaves team at its Chattanooga headquarters and has challenged the staff with his “mean game of Super Smash Bros.”

FreightWaves is one of the fastest-growing enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies in the world. In less than three years, FreightWaves has become the leading provider of data and analytics for the global freight market. FreightWaves’ team of 150 full-time captures, models, and interprets near-time data from more than one thousand sources to provide participants with the fastest insights into the global freight market. The company offers the fastest data in the industry and the most complete view across all modes of freight transportation. SONAR, the company’s SaaS offering, is a market dashboard that provides companies involved in transportation with access to datasets that can help them optimize their routing, pricing, and planning decisions. 

FreightWaves is also the largest publisher of freight news and data in the world. FreightWaves.com publishes 40+ news articles per day, providing commentary and analysis for freight transportation, while FreightWaves TV is the first and only streaming TV network for the transport and logistics industry.

Upcoming FreightWaves Events
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Reshoring is rewriting freight demand. Join shippers, rail executives, and government officials to shape the next decade.

July 28, 2026
The Signal at Chattanooga Choo Choo • Chattanooga, TN
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Fraud & Security Freight Fraud Symposium May 20 • Cleveland, OH

Double brokering. AI deepfakes. Identity theft. Freight fraud is an existential threat to the industry. Get ahead of it.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame • Cleveland, OH Register Now
AI & Technology Supply Chain AI Symposium Jul 15 • Chicago, IL

Past the hype. Join operators, founders, and enterprise leaders figuring out how to deploy AI in supply chain.

The Old Post Office • Chicago, IL Register Now
Rail & Policy Future of Rail Symposium Jul 28 • Chattanooga, TN

Reshoring is rewriting freight demand. Join shippers, rail executives, and government officials to shape the next decade.

The Signal at Chattanooga Choo Choo • Chattanooga, TN Register Now