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Reducing freight market risk — Midday Market Update (with video)

Michael Vincent and Zach Strickland help you understand risk mitigation through market ebbs and flows

Headlines

Nikola founder Trevor Milton sold about 3 million of his company shares following the expiration of the lockup period for early stock buyers. Milton retains 88 million shares and still is the company’s largest shareholder. 

Carrier YRC Worldwide reported flat year-over-year growth in shipments, continuing a slower pace than its competitors. 


Demand for warehouse space is increasing along with the need for reverse logistics services, with CBRE Inc. reporting a need to add 400 million square feet of space. 

Strickland gives an update on SONAR data and talks about tender rejection rates dropping back down to 25% after Thanksgiving. 

Anthony Smith reports the unemployment rate has dipped to 6.7%, with some slight positivity in warehousing and transportation. He believes employment opportunities in warehouses will be a space to “capture individuals who haven’t been able to go back to work,” because those industries will function despite pandemic-caused business restrictions. 

The divide between contract and spot markets


Strickland and Vincent bring on Kyle Lintner, principal and managing director at K-Ratio, to talk about the volatility of the freight markets. 

Lintner says that the way the freight market is set up with the option of contract rates or spot rates adds massive amounts of risk to the market for shippers and carriers.

“The flip-flopping back and forth is what keeps this thing volatile,” says Lintner. 

His advice for brokers moving into 2021 would be to find a balance between spot and contract rates to protect themselves as the market changes. 

Maritime market update with Greg Miller

FreightWaves Senior Editor Greg Miller comes on the show to discuss how the trans-Pacific market looks finishing out the year. 

With continued bottlenecks at the ports, Miller says maritime shipping rates and demand will see no change. 

Miller says, “2020 is in the bag, nothing is going to let up this year.” Shippers and carriers should expect the tight market to continue through the beginning of 2021. 


You can find more Midday Market Update recaps and recaps for all our live podcasts here.

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Kaylee Nix

Kaylee Nix is a meteorologist and reporter for FreightWaves. She joined the company in November of 2020 after spending two years as a broadcast meteorologist for a local television channel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kaylee graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2018 and immediately made the Tennessee Valley her home. Kaylee creates written summaries of FreightWaves live podcasts and cultivates the social media for FreightWaves TV.