Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 9/16/22

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 2.1% in June after increasing 1.2% in May. In June, the index equaled 116.5 (2015=100) compared with 114.1 in May. “While the tonnage index increased in both May and June, it remains in recession territory,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “The index continues to fall from a year earlier and is off 1.9% from its recent peak in September 2022. A multitude of factors have caused a recession in freight, including stagnant consumer spending on goods, lower home construction, falling factory output, and shippers consolidating freight into fewer shipments compared with the frenzy during the goods buying spree at the height of the pandemic. However, the magnitude of the year-over-year declines is improving, perhaps pointing to a bottom in the freight market.” Compared with June 2022, the SA index decreased 0.8%, which was the fourth straight year-over-year decrease. In May, the index was down 2.4% from a year earlier.

Import patterns appear to be returning to normal pre-pandemic levels amid a slowdown in cargo. With a pandemic-driven surge finally over, monthly import cargo volume at the nation’s major container ports has fallen below the 2 million TEU mark and should remain there through most of this spring, according to the Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. “After nearly three years of COVID-19’s impact on global trade and consumer demand, import patterns appear to be returning to what was normal prior to 2020,” Hackett Associates founder Ben Hackett said. “Nonetheless, as inflation eases and consumer spending returns, we project that growth will slowly return going into the second half of the year.”

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $3.260; Month Ago: $3.181; Year Ago: $2.187. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $3.436; Month Ago: $3.296; Year Ago: $2.386.