A growing economy is always good news for trucking services companies, and that is exactly what appears to be happening with the US economy. Leading economic indicators, generally predictive of future economic activity, were up 1.1% in December 2009 according to The Conference Board, who puts together the leading economic numbers.
Not all economic activity requires that people ship freight around, but added economic activity will generally mean added shipments of goods, and that is good for the trucking industry. It would tend to be very good for owner-operators, for they would be likely to pick up extra loads as companies reach the limits of their in-house drivers and need to bring some OO “temps” on board to pick up the extra load.
Of course, the leading economic indicators aren’t perfect; the old joke about Wall Street was that it predicted seven of the last four recessions and nine of the last five recoveries. However, many of the leading indicators, like new housing starts, are items that beg for more economic activity to follow, since people aren’t going to start a house without planning to finish it.
That should help a troubled trucking and trucking logistics industries, as excess capacity will get absorbed by added demand. We might not be at the end of the cheap freight era quite yet, but a good second half of 2009 bodes well for 2010 and may keep quite a few companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy going on for years to come.
Source:http://www.joc.com/node/416160
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