Headline data for truck shipments were mixed in February – but our analysis believes trucking growth rate is improving.
Analyst Opinion of Truck Transport
I tend to put heavier weight on the CASS index which again showed a moderate improvement year-over-year. The ATA data continues to wander all over the map – and is likely a result of seasonal adjustment issues.
It is also interesting that the current trucking employment pattern is now showing a short-term improvement trend which supports the CASS index.
ATA Trucking
Slipped 0.1% in February, following a 2.9% increase during January.
February’s numbers, especially the year-over-year drop, might surprise some as several other economic indicators were positive in February. However, I’m not worried about the decline from February last year as it was really due to very difficult comparisons more than anything else: February 2016 was abnormally strong.
Looking ahead, signs remain mostly positive for truck tonnage, including lower inventory levels, better manufacturing activity, solid housing starts, good consumer spending, as well as an increase in the oil rig count – all of which are drivers of freight volumes.
Truck tonnage this month
Compared with February 2016, the SA index decreased 2.8%.
Econintersect tries to validate ATA truck data across data sources. It appears this month that jobs growth says the trucking industry employment levels were up month-over-month. Please note using BLS employment data in real time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted (sometimes significantly).
This data series is not transparent and therefore cannot be relied on. Please note that the ATA does not release an unadjusted data series (although they report the unadjusted value each month – but do not report revisions to this data) where Econintersect can make an independent evaluation. The data is apparently subject to significant backward revision. Not all trucking companies are members of the ATA, and therefore it is unknown if this data is a representative sampling of the trucking industry.
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