Morgan Stanley

Port container volumes, railroad volumes, and truckload volumes are all down year-over-year.

Cargo thefts fell 19 percent in 2018 compared to the year before, according to SensiGuard. Plus, the EU cuts a deal on truck emissions and another trucker protest is planned for this week.

Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing (MSREI), the private real estate investment arm of Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), has purchased a majority stake of KSH Infra Pvt. Ltd. for INR (Rupees) 3.5 billion or $49 million.

Investors may be starting to come around to the idea that truckload carriers have another year of strong margins ahead of them.

The company’s stock took it on the chin for much of 2018 but the company said it had a strong fourth quarter.

Everyone knew the quarter was weaker than it had been. The question is how much. Stock prices have reflected a significant slowdown.

Will Amazon take more boxes at the expense of FedEx, UPS, USPS?

Morgan Stanley likes asset-based carriers while Stifel is bullish on 3PLs, and the banks don’t agree on what the business risks to C.H. Robinson are.

Amazon Air presents a new challenge to legacy air freight carriers by announcing a new hub at Fort Worth Alliance airport.

Also in the pickup: the sad state of interstate 81; farmers and truckers in the news; Saia’s fourth-quarter status report

Investment bank Stifel Nicolaus (NYSE: SF) thinks that publicly-traded truckload stocks are now an attractive buy, with higher earnings available at reasonable valuations. That’s just one takeaway from a raft of research released this week by Stifel and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) as the banks look forward to what next year holds for transportation. 

Also in the pickup: Morgan Stanley index, and a move back to sailing across the ocean.

How much of the strength is pre-tariff purchases? How much of the talk of weakness is “on the other hand” economics?

Also today: going to jail for bogus CDLs; ecommerce driving the Canada Post labor dispute.

XPO stock dragged down by soft Q3 results, M&A impatience.

Also in the pickup: IMO meets with 2020 on the horizon; Rhine levels are causing plants to shut down; C.R. England and its charitable cause

The usual signs of an upturn in the trucking sector aren’t there, according to the Wall Street house, and Morgan wonders if a lot of the demand got pushed forward.

Morgan Stanley’s Truckload Freight Index has decreased over the last two weeks and has now underperformed seasonality two updates in a row. This seasonal deceleration is not unusual, as July and August tend to be weaker.

A panel of financial experts were mixed when asked whether the industry would see higher spot rates one year from now, but continued capacity issues was not in debate.

Shippers are anticipating continued volume increases, tighter capacity, and further rate increases according to a Morgan Stanley survey.