"Earnings are dropping at all transportation carriers."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IK07Dj01.html


The dinner roll model of Yale economics


-snip-

Mr Droke (of Clif Droke Market Analysis - clifdroke.com) is obviously not as lazy or worthless as I am, nor as impressed with my startling brevity, which is supposed to be the soul of wit, and says the same thing by quoting a letter he had received from a reader of his, who writes, "I work for Yellow Freight (YRC Worldwide). I can tell you that volume has dropped drastically over the past year and it is very slow right now considering this is the busy time of year for transportation. Our volume has dropped down to half of what it was last year at this time."

Not unsurprisingly, then, "Earnings are dropping at all transportation carriers." Then he reminds us that "transportation companies are leading indicators for the state of the economy", which I remember learning a long time ago, but since I don't trade for a living anymore, I kind of fell away from paying attention to this kind of fundamental analysis. So, sheepishly, I go and look at the Dow Jones Transportation Average, and sure enough, it DOES look kind of punkish!

So if this is a leading indicator, then watch out!

-long snip that gets to the Yale dinner role-
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they are almost to the point where they save money by staying home instead of losing money by hitting the road.

Will China supplement the truckers gas costs so that they will ship their plastic crap to the stores for us to buy?

I can't imagine how the independents are keeping their trucks on the road. :(

Can't really speak for domestic trucking, however, I work at an international freight forwarder.

In general, economists say exports should be up due to the dollar's decline, but it's not really that simple.

Business is up for our clients who have people overseas buying from them (weak dollar = super bargains on heavy machinery, etc) and business is waaaay down from our clients who source items domestically and then export them to their sites overseas.

Fuel surcharges are through the roof and some new (incredibly stupid btw) TSA known shipper rules for export are not helping things. It's the slowest I've ever seen in three years.

We are banking heavily on some project business now in (surprise, surprise) the Middle East. Figures.