Trucking shipments suffer first year-on-year drop in 24 months

What is happening: Shipping volumes in the US have suffered their first year-on-year drop since 2017.

Numbers: Trucking numbers in December 2018 were below those of December 2017, representing the first year-on-year drop in two years. 

Expenditures: December expenditures grew 1.9% the previous month, and 10% from the same month in 2017.

Cass: Analysts from Cass claim this is not a big worry, it merely means the US economy ‘may have reached its short term expansion limit.’

Threats: They label tariffs and crude oil prices as they two main threats to a growing economy. Both could affect freight volume heading forward.

What did Cass’ report say: “Current consensus estimates of the GDP for the 4th quarter are predicting 2.8%, but using the Cass Shipments Index as a predictive proxy, this would leave us believing the number reported in January may fall short of those estimates.”