spot rate volatility

Today’s selloff on soft revenue growth guidance went too far, according to Stifel’s Bruce Chan and Susquehanna’s Bascome Majors.

ECHO pivoted away from the spot market and also leaned into LTL.

FreightWaves, DAT, Nodal Exchange, and K-Ratio pitched trucking freight futures to a diverse group of financial institutions and media and tech companies on Wall Street on Wednesday.

Access to data has improved market transparency, and recent spikes in volatility make the case that transportation costs must be hedged and de-risked.

The macroeconomy is slowing down to trend-line growth, but drivers of freight movement look worse.

Chicago to Atlanta is holding up around $2/mile net of fuel, while lanes like Los Angeles to Dallas have crashed 40% off their November high.

Shippers aren’t shy about moving contract rates down in RFP negotiations, and even brokers are surprised at how cheap capacity has become.

Brokers at Arrive, Trident, and Avenger told us that capacity is flowing into Southeast markets, pushing down rates in that region, while the PNW and Midwest have tightened up significantly.

The spot market has been cooling over the past several months, but the players seem more uncertain than ever.

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. 

The November Market Update, presented in partnership with Convoy, featured FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller and Chief Economist Ibrahiim Bayaan, who discussed macroeconomic data and trends in freight markets.

Executives from MoLo, Steam, and Arrive gave insight into the complexity of West Coast freight market volatility, which goes beyond tariffs, and talked about how brokerages and shippers are responding.

This morning at MarketWaves18 in Grapevine, Texas, FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller announced that freight futures will begin trading on March 29, 2018.

In Partnership with Arrive Logistics… we talk freight market data with executives from Arrive Logistics and ask them how they’re preparing to handle surging volumes in Q4 and beyond.

Small carriers enjoy 30% better retention rates than megas; container lines raise rates worldwide; truckload carriers try to capitalize on a historically favorable freight environment; Tesla begs its suppliers for cash back; LNG production is accelerating.

Trucking passes all five of Paul Newman’s tests for a successful futures market. That’s why we’re building a financially-settled freight futures contract with Nodal Exchange and DAT.