Headline data for truck shipments were again mixed in June – but our analysis believes trucking growth rate is modestly improving.

Analyst Opinion of Truck Transport

I tend to put heavier weight on the CASS index which again showed a moderate improvement year-over-year. The ATA data continues to wander all over the map – and is likely a result of seasonal adjustment issues and a smaller share of shipping now going to ATA members.

It is also interesting that the current trucking employment pattern is now showing a short term improvement trend which supports the CASS index.

ATA Trucking

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index fell 4.3% in June, following a 6.9% gain during May. In June, the index equaled 138.5 (2000=100), down from 144.7 in May. Said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello:

After such a large spike in May, it was not surprising to see the index give back some of those gains in June. However, looking back at the second quarter as a whole, tonnage was up 0.8% over the first quarter and 1.9% over the same quarter last year, so it was a solid three month period.

June’s slide does not change my belief that we will continue to see moderate, albeit at times choppy, growth in truck tonnage as the year continues.

ATA Truck tonnage this month

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Compared with May 2016, the SA index increased 1.3 % year-over-year.

Econintersect tries to validate ATA truck data across data sources. It appears this month that jobs growth says the trucking industry employment levels were down month-over-month. Please note using BLS employment data in real time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted (sometimes 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.