Contract accepted volumes from 2020 surpassed this year volumes for the first time late last week.

The intersection coming at a time when spot rates have started pulling down contractual costs. According to DAT, domestic contract rates are coming in about $0.57/mile higher than spot rates.

That’s a $0.07 decline from June on the contractual front and a $0.04 drop in the spot market.

Flatbed spot vs contract has been moving in parallel as opposed to its Van counterpart however has started to follow a similar trend as flatbed saw a $0.07 deterioration in contracted rates from June to July.

An almost 10% drop in overall housing starts, easing residential construction spending, a 5.4% decrease in existing home sales, and Fannie Mae’s HPSI falling to levels not seen since 2011 are just a couple of reasons as to why those contracted rates for flatbed are deteriorating.

What seemed like a relatively quick return to normalcy for the fuel rack price halted back on August 9th and has been climbing ever since.

Combine that with the continued decline in retail diesel costs and there goes your fuel margin spread between small and mega fleets.

As of recent, an uptick in rack costs has typically been a leading indicator of what’s to come for the price at the pump.

Here’s to hoping that trend doesn’t repeat itself in the coming weeks.

According to the official Port of LA Twitter handle, the port broke another all-time high import record in July, processing and estimated 935k TEUs, outpacing the previous record by 2.5% which was set back in 2019.

When asked why the port has seen such robust throughput Gene Seroka the Executive Director of the port, acknowledged the strength of the consumer over the past 2.5 years, however did note that August imports will reflect the bearish feel of the market we’ve been experiencing over the past couple of months.

Seroka made no mention of the loss of market share the port has experienced over the pandemic however, promoted the ports available terminal capacity as a solution for cargo owners experiencing increased dwell times domestically.

Dwell times at the port of LA have decreased 25% over the past month according to P44, now down to 4.15 days.

This has been your Bridge Logistics Market Update for the week of Aug 22rd, 2022.