Econintersect: The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) trucking index declined 3% following an downwardly revised improvement of 0.4% in March. From ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello:
Like most economic indicators, truck tonnage was soft in April. Unless tonnage snaps back in May and June, GDP growth will likely be suppressed in the second quarter. Truck tonnage is off 5.3% from the high in January. The next couple of months will be telling for both truck freight and the broader economy. Any significant jump from the first quarter is looking more doubtful.
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Compared with one year ago, seasonally adjusted tonnage increased 1.0%.
Econintersect tries to validate data across data sources. It appears this month that jobs growth says the trucking industry increased 0.1% month-over-month (red line). Please note using BLS employment data in real time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted significantly.
This data series is not transparent and therefore cannot be relied on. Please note that the ATA does not release an unadjusted data series (although they report the unadjusted value each month – but do not report revisions to this data) where Econintersect can make an independent evaluation. The data is apparently subject to significant backward revision. Not all trucking companies are members of the ATA, and therefore it is unknown if this data is a representative sampling of the trucking industry.
source: ATA
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