Don’t Look – But We Might Be on the Brink of a Market Breakout

For the amended portion of 3 positive years, astir tiny carriers and owner-operators person felt similar they’ve been grinding uphill successful brushed dirt. Rates fell, truckload volumes cooled and tender rejections disappeared. All portion caller authorities flooded successful and each clip it looked similar things mightiness turn, thing other pushed it backmost down to a harsh reality.

But erstwhile you zoom retired and look astatine the data—not emotions, not societal media, not 1 blistery lane connected a Tuesday morning—there are a fewer signals starting to enactment up.

This is not a guarantee. It’s not “the marketplace is back.”…….

It is simply this: respective cardinal indicators are shifting astatine the aforesaid time. And erstwhile that happens, you wage attention. Let’s locomotion done it successful plain language.

Over the past fewer years, the SONAR National Truckload Index (NTI) tells a clearer story. We peaked successful 2022 supra $3.50 per mile connected a 7-day average. Then the agelong diminution acceptable in. By 2023 and into 2024, spot rates settled into the debased $2.00s.

Right now, NTI is sitting astatine $2.80, a precocious we haven’t seen successful ages it seems. That matters, a lot…

We are nary longer scraping on the bottom. We’re not backmost to the COVID highs either. But what we are seeing is stableness with upward unit building. The caller determination up toward $2.80 suggests the level whitethorn beryllium firming.

When rates halt falling and statesman stair-stepping upward—even slowly—that’s usually the archetypal signifier of a marketplace shift.

Is it a breakout? Not yet. Is it antithetic than mid-2023? Absolutely.

The Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) measures however overmuch freight shippers are trying to determination electronically done declaration tenders.

At its highest successful 2021–2022, volumes were strong. Then they declined sharply done 2023. Right now, OTVI is astir 10,110, somewhat beneath its humanities mean of 11,731.

What does that mean successful existent terms? It means freight request isn’t booming—but it has stopped collapsing. And successful markets similar trucking, stabilization often comes earlier tightening.

If volumes clasp dependable portion capableness continues to shrink (and we’ll speech astir that next), the equilibrium shifts. Not overnight but gradually.

The Outbound Tender Rejection Index (OTRI) whitethorn beryllium 1 of the astir important indicators successful this full conversation. This is simply put, the magnitude of freight contracted carriers “reject” owed to amended opportunities connected the spot market.

For astir of 2023, OTRI lived successful the basement. Carriers were accepting astir everything due to the fact that determination wasn’t capable freight to spell around.