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In March, the nation's trucks hauled almost 4% more tonnage around the country than they did a year ago. This is good evidence of the increased physical size of the economy and its continued overall growth.
The top chart shows the long-term trend in truck tonnage and how it correlates to the level of the S&P 500. If anything, it lends credibility to the rise in equity prices, since it shows that equities have risen pretty much in line with the expansion of the economy in the past four years. The second chart shows just the truck tonnage index, and how—with the exception of a burst of activity in late 2011 and a weather-related drop in October of last year—the recovery has been relatively steady and constant for the past four years, increasing at a 5% annualized pace since March 2009.
4 comments:
A much better index than the rails..
I think, Mr Grannis, is going to be correct about a 3% increase in GNP..
http://sheilamckinney.blogspot.com/2013/04/accounting-changes-will-have.html
But, sheesh, look at truck tonnage in the 1990s. It nearly doubles!
Now, we are wishy-washing sideways in the 2000s.
That may reflect a shift in consumption to services, but who really knows. Also, a secular shift to rails.
Still good news for now....
Thank goodness someone got rid of the numbers for robot verification....
I've been expecting interest rates to rise for several years and I've been dead wrong. I keep thinking that it is much more likely that rates rise than that they fall. But the timing is difficult to pin down. Rates will rise when the Fed becomes more optimistic about the economy, and/or when the market becomes more optimistic about the economy. Rates are very low now because both the Fed and the market are very pessimistic about the economy's prospects.
Estate Agents in Wolverhampton
So why isn't the transportation index 10% above its 2008 levels like truck tonnage?? Being long this sector, I'd really like to know.
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