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Backlog for Big Rigs Stretches to 2019 Due To Trump's Economic Successes


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2018 Aug 17, 9:37am   1,425 views  2 comments

by MrMagic   ➕follow (2)   💰tip   ignore  

North American freight-haulers ordered more than 300,000 Class 8 trucks in the first seven months of this year and are on track to order a record 450,000 of the heavy-duty vehicles for the full year, according to ACT Research. That would be the largest book since 2004, when orders reached 390,000, according to analysts.

Freight-hauling fleets are trying to keep up with swelling demand in a robust U.S. economy even as they say they face difficulty finding drivers.

“There’s basically a shortage of trucks right now because of supply-chain issues,” said Don Ake, an analyst with research group FTR. Manufacturers “can’t build trucks fast enough because their suppliers can’t keep up.”

“It is longer than it should be,” said Magnus Koeck, vice president of marketing for Volvo AB’s North America operation, where Class 8 truck orders this year soared to 25,000 from 11,000 during the first six months of 2017. “Of course we are not alone in this situation,” he said. “Everyone is in the same boat.”


https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-in-line-backlog-for-big-rigs-stretches-to-2019-1534500005

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1   MrMagic   2018 Aug 19, 6:28pm  

What Truckers & Railroads Just Said About The US Economy.

The transportation sector is a reflection of the goods-based economy in the US. Demand has been blistering across all modes of transportation. Freight shipment volume by truck, rail, air, and barge, according to the Cass Freight Index jumped 10.6% in July compared to a year earlier. This pushed the index, which is not seasonally adjusted, to its highest level for July since 2007.



The dynamics in the transportation sector are “clearly signaling that the US economy, at least for now, is ignoring all of the angst coming out of Washington D.C. about the trade wars,” the report by Cass said.

The Cass Shipments Index does not include shipments of bulk commodities, such as grains or chemicals. But shipments of commodities were strong too, according to the Association of American Railroads. Excluding the carload category of coal, which is facing a structural decline in the US, carloads rose by 6.7% year-over-year, including grain, up 14.7%; petroleum & petroleum products, up 27%; and chemicals, up 4.6%. Of the 20 commodity carload categories, only five showed declines, including nonmetallic minerals, metallic ores, and the biggie, coal.


Retail sales – particularly e-commerce sales – have been strong all year. In July, retail sales jumped 6.4% from a year ago. That explains part of the surge in transportation demand. But industrial demand is hot too.

Demand from the industrial sector shows up in demand for flatbed trailers that haul equipment and supplies for the revived oil-and-gas drilling boom, construction, manufacturing, etc. Demand surged just as capacity tightened, and suddenly the DAT Flatbed Weekly Barometer, cited by Cass, spiked.



Trucking companies are responding to the capacity squeeze: In July, their orders for Class 8 trucks soared 187% from a year ago, to 52,250 units, the highest number of monthly orders ever. Truck manufacturers, which had been laying off people during the transportation recession, now have their own capacity squeeze that goes all the up the supply chain. “It is a bizarre occurrence and it will not be resolved soon,” FTR Transportation Intelligence explained.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-19/what-truckers-railroads-just-said-about-us-economy
2   MrMagic   2018 Aug 19, 6:31pm  

But some of our resident Economic experts at Patnet will just tell us that Trump is just following the trend line of Obama, specially Obama's last two years (Recovery Summer #7 and #8).

Anyone with basic 3rd grade math skills can see if that statement is true in the charts above...


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