This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Research. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper
comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
Total rail vols increased 0.2% y/y, decelerated from +5.3% and +2.9% the prior 2 weeks. Rail vols posted their slowest growth in the past 7 weeks as vols for the Canadians turned negative and coal vols also inflected negative. Vols are now tracking up 2.0% QTD vs. +1.6% in 1Q and about 50bp above our expectations. Vols are currently tracking the most above our expectations for CP and CSX, but modestly below for CNI and KSU.
Below, we analyze transport stock performance during past periods of rising ten-year treasury yields like we’ve seen over the past month. Transport stocks typically outperform the market in the one-year period after rates bottom with the most outperformance from non-asset-forwarders and truckers. The rails are the one sub-sector that has historically underperformed in this environment. (pg. 2)
This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Research. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper
comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
Total rail vols increased 5.3% y/y this week, accelerated from +2.9% and +2.5% the prior 2 weeks. Excluding CP who faced a very easy comp due a strike last year, total vols were up 2% y/y for the week vs. flat last week. Total rail vols incl. CP are now tracking up 2.2% QTD vs. +1.6% in 1Q and above our expectations of about 1.5%. Vols are currently tracking the most above our expectations for CP and CSX, but most below for KSU and CNI QTD.
This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Research. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
Total rail vols increased 2.9% y/y in Week 21, accelerated from +2.5% and +2.3% the prior 2 weeks. Note that CP faced an extremely easy comp due to a 9-day strike last year, and excluding CP, total vols were flat y/y for the week. Total Rail vols are now tracking up 1.9% QTD so far in 2Q, accelerated modestly from +1.6% in 1Q and slightly above our expectations. Vols are tracking most above our expectations for CP and CSX and most below for KSU so far in 2Q.
This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Research. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
Transports with Most Momentum: KNX, RRTS, CNI, KEX sounded relatively best to us, and nobody sounded particularly bad
This month’s Macro examines March and April data. As shown on Slide 8, freight vols on avg. declined 2% y/y in March and are tracking up less than 1% y/y based on preliminary April data after growing close to 3% the 1st two months of the year. Moreover, our proprietary Seasonal Freight Index (Slide 7) has dipped back below 50 the past 2 months after accelerating sharply late last year and early this year.