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The ATA said that its advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index was up 3.2 percent in May for the first time since February, following 2.2 percent and 4.5 percent declines in April and March, respectively. To begin 2009, the index had a promising start, with a 4.5 percent cumulative gain in January and February.
The uptick in the ATA’s advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index brought the seasonally-adjusted index up to 102.3 (2000=100), but ATA officials said it was not enough to compensate for the cumulative 6.7 percent decline from March and April. In March the index was 101.4, which at that time was the lowest level it had seen since March 2002.
And its not seasonally adjusted (NSA) index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, was up 102, a gain of 0.4 percent from April. April’s NSA was 101.6.
On a year-over-year basis, tonnage was down 11 percent in May, marking the best year-over-year effort in three months, said the ATA. Although the decline was better than April’s 13.2 percent decline, ATA officials said May’s decrease is still historically huge.
Bob Costello, ATA Chief Economist said in a statement that the month-to-month improvement was encouraging, but cautioned that tonnage is unlikely to surge anytime soon.
“I am hopeful that the worst is behind us, but I just don’t see anything on the economic horizon that suggests freight transportation is ready to explode. The consumer is still facing too many headwinds, including employment losses, tight credit, rising fuel prices, and falling home values, to name a few, that will make it very difficult for household spending to jump in the near term.”
Costello added that he doesn’t expect tonnage to deteriorate much further and that any growth in tonnage over the next few months is likely to be modest.
Opinions akin to this were prevalent at April’s National Shippers Strategic Council (NASSTRAC) annual conference in Orlando, Fla. and last week’s eyefortransport 3PL Summit in Atlanta, with trucking and 3PL executives and shippers telling LM that business conditions and volumes appear to be “less worse” in recent weeks, but there is still ways to go before a full recovery is seen.
In April, Stephens Inc. Managing Director Thom Albrecht wrote in a research note that despite a few inferences that freight volumes are seeing moderating declines and/or even establishing a floor, nothing suggests any sort of measurable recovery. And even though tonnage has seen gains in recent months Albrecht pointed out tonnage has not seen these current low levels since September 2003.
Albrecht told LM in an interview that he focuses on the not seasonally adjusted index on a year-over-year basis for an “apples-to-apples” comparison.
“This is what the actual truckers feel out there,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of seasonally adjusted data.”
Even though there have been incremental improvements in tonnage the past two months, Morgan Stanley analyst Bill Greene wrote in a research note that June could be much different, with tonnage potentially declining further again.
Among the reasons cited by Greene for this were gasoline prices being up 20 percent since May and 35 percent since April, which could have a direct impact on consumer spending and truckload demand.
Trucking serves as a barometer of the
(Source: Logistics Management)
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