Freight shipments and expenditures’ readings were largely in February, according to the new edition of the Cass Freight Index, which was recently issued by Cass Information Systems.
Many freight transportation and logistics executives and analysts consider the Cass Freight Index to be the most accurate barometer of freight volumes and market conditions, with many analysts noting that the Cass Freight Index sometimes leads the American Trucking Associations (ATA) tonnage index at turning points, which lends to the value of the Cass Freight Index.
What’s more, the Cass Transportation Index accurately measure changes in North American freight activity and costs based on $36 billion in paid freight expenses for the Cass customer base of hundreds of large shippers.
The February shipments reading, at 0.978, fell 7.2% annually, in line with January’s 7.1% annual decline, which indicated a new cycle low in January, and rose 10.4% compared to January. The reading was down 12.3% on a two-year stacked change basis and up 4.3% on a month-to-month seasonally-adjusted (SA) basis.
Tim Denoyer, the report’s author and ACT Research vice president and senior analyst, wrote in the report that the increase in shipments on a month-to-month seasonally-adjusted basis recovered much of the weather disruptions seen over the previous two months—adding that the normal seasonal trend would put the shipments component of the report down 5% annually in March.
February expenditures, at 3.143, were up 2.1% annually, an improvement over January’s 0.6% annual gain, and rose 5.1% sequentially and were down 2.5% and up 0.3% on a two-year stacked change basis and a month-to-month SA basis, respectively.
“While shipment declines continue, the year-over-year increases in expenditures were driven by higher rates,” noted Denoyer.
