Freight Forecast Amounts to Mixed Bag

(Fleet Owner)

The latest U.S. freight market outlook issued by FTR Associates presents a mixed bag of projections. Freight volumes should start recovering by early 2010 and could gain significant strength as the year progresses, according to the firm’s economists. Yet much of those gains will depend on the strength of the overall U.S. economic recovery, which is predicted to be only modest at best as consumer spending is expected to remain at lower levels.

“We seem to be exiting the ‘Great Recession’ but it’s not clear yet if that exit is leading to more demand for freight,” said Eric Starks, FTR president, during a webinar conducted by the firm today on the state of the U.S. freight market.

FTR is forecasting a modest U.S. economic recovery through 2010. The firm sees U.S. gross domestic product [GDP] rising 4.5% in the first two quarters but then backsliding to 3.5% to 4% in the second half of the year. Freight volumes are expected to outperform GDP, however. They will rise 4% by the second quarter, increase to 5.5% in the third quarter, and top out at 7.7% in the fourth quarter of 2010 as inventories – currently at historically low levels – are replenished. Read more here.