Additionally, inflation concerns are starting to dramatically impact consumer sentiment, though that sentiment hasn’t spilled over to retail sales or Bank of America’s total card spending, which are still running up over 16% y/y. Upticks in ocean bookings in recent weeks will likely keep capacity on the ocean tight, but also impact the backlogs at the ports as well ahead of the Lunar New Year. On Wednesday, accepted tender volumes were 4.3% higher than they were in 2020, signaling that more freight was moving through networks.īacklogs are still being worked through at the ports, while inventory levels remain at historically low levels. Again the timing of Thanksgiving is impacting y/y comparisons, now down 15.6%, but that will likely turn positive again in a day or two. Over the past week, accepted freight volumes have decreased by 13.8%, but on Wednesday, accepted tender volumes were up over 5% w/w. Over the past two years, freight volumes have been driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the economy has reopened, tender volumes remain elevated.Īdjusting OTVI, which includes both accepted and rejected tenders, by the tender rejection rates shows the true level of freight moving through networks. Tender volumes in 2021 have largely followed what occurred in 2020, though the moves in 2020 were more pronounced, which leads to tender levels being down 8% year-over-year (y/y).Įven with the Thanksgiving impact, tender volumes are 23% higher than they were in 2019 when they were still climbing ahead of Thanksgiving. Volumes traditionally fell from Labor Day through early November, before a rapid increase leading into the Thanksgiving holiday and traditional peak retail season (Black Friday). The chart above shows that volumes have been trending in a largely seasonal pattern for the better part of three months now. To learn more about FreightWaves SONAR, click here.
Thanksgiving causes sharp decline in tender volumes:
While the pullback in volumes on Thursday looks alarming, tender volumes on Wednesday were the highest they had been in over a month. OTVI, a seven-day moving average of shippers’ requests for capacity, tumbled by over 18% on Thursday, which is pretty normal around holidays. True to form, Thanksgiving impacted the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) drastically.