Retail

The monthly economic roundup is a summary of recent event in the economy and a guide for key trends worth monitoring over the next month.

Despite the temporary end to the government shutdown announced late Friday, the U.S. Census Bureau failed today to release its report on manufacturers’ durable goods shipments, inventories, and orders for the month of December 2018.

Class 8 truck orders dropped dramatically in both November and December, with orders dropping below deliveries in December.

It’s that time of year; time to look forward and plan for the year. In order to have a better idea of where the economy and industry are headed, we always like to look back and review from where we came and what happened.

Manufacturing leads first-party logistics growth because of the sector’s long-established supply chains. Retail is the next-largest contributor to first-party logistics growth through the impact of e-commerce.

‘Tis nearly the season now for reverse logistics, but meanwhile retailers and parcel carriers are delivering strong results along with signals of steep changes in sales and shipping patterns this holiday season.

The freight market remains slow in most parts of the country except for one. Will it spill into other regions?

The freight market is showing the first signs of turning in over a month. Is this the start of retail season?

FreightWaves Chief Economist Ibrahiim Bayaan and FreightWaves Chief Analytics Officer Dean Croke explained what the data is saying about the freight market in this week’s monthly market update.

When you consider all the implications of the service, it may be one of the biggest deals happening in the industry that you haven’t heard about.

The freight market continues to stabilize, but there should be a little fuel left in the tank for one more seasonal push before the holidays.

Overall truckload volumes and spot rates are soft, but a huge wave of containers hit the West Coast in September, retail demand is strong, and additions to the national fleet of drivers have been marginal.

The number of trucks sold at auction climbed notably in September, and pricing trended lower. Model year 2015 trucks took a particularly hard hit thanks to higher volume and higher average mileage.

Barclays forecasts a drop in oil price; China is witnessing a historic fall in auto sales over stock market crash and U.S.-China trade war; banks are discussing on emergency financing to liquidate Sears.

Hurricane Michael is forecast to make landfall as a strengthening Category 4; Sears may go bankrupt; retailers struggle to fill the hole left by Toys R Us; Cowen is bullish on Canadian Pacific; Seoul continues ploughing money into HMM to cover operations.

Indices are clearly signaling that the container volume coming in through the Long Beach/LA port is surging and bodes well for the holiday shopping season.

A roundup of economic data releases and events over the past month, and view of trends worth watching in October. Freight demand conditions remained generally solid during the month, though international trade and housing remain trouble areas. Supply within trucking looks to be expanding, and hires in the industry continued to climb

Amazon 4-star will open to the public today in the SoHo neighborhood of New York.

J.D. Power is forecasting more new truck deliveries in the coming months, but demand is still expected to outpace supply into the second quarter of 2019.

This is all part of the startup’s mission to help independent ecommerce businesses battle giants like Amazon.