John’s Blog 10-25-11

Dear Friends,

The economy continues its slow but steady recovery. The dreaded double dip back into recession is looking less and less likely every day.

Positive news is there if one will only look. Yes, we still have problems with unemployment and in the housing sector, along with an economic mess in Europe that affects us. But we are getting better. The one lagging indicator is consumer confidence, but confident or not, people are still spending.

The Commerce Department says that retail sales were up 1.1% in September for the largest gain since February. Retailers are reporting sales are ahead of last year at this time.

While it is clear that we have a long way to go to fixing this economy, small improvements are happening monthly; at least we’re heading in the right direction. The Department of Labor reports better jobs numbers in September with a net gain in total payrolls of 103,000. The August and July numbers were revised upwards for a combined net gain of 99,000 jobs.

Truck tonnage was up in August by 5.2% according to the American Trucking Association, and the Cass Freight Shipments Index increased 5% in September from August. Year over year the Cass September index grew 7.5%.  This is the highest reading for the month of September in the last three years.  Morgan Keegan reports that the dry van load to truck ratio showed significant improvement in September as well.

Trucking companies are expanding and upgrading their fleets, which bodes well for both manufacturers and carriers. Companies ordered 23,600 new Class 8 tractors for a 55.5% jump in September from a year ago. Companies also ordered 12,524 new trailers for a 10% year-over-year jump in sales in August.

UPS and FedEx are reporting record profits and gearing up for a busy e-commerce holiday buying season.   FedEx expects to handle 260 million packages for a 12% increase over 2010.  December 12^th is expected to be their busiest day of the year.

The railroads’ total carloads increased 1.8% year over year for the week ending October 13^th, according to the AAR.  In the same period intermodal loadings increased 5.4%.

At Wagner we are wrapping up a strong October and putting together budgets for 2012. We are upgrading technology across the company as we continue to enhance our capabilities in transportation and distribution. We have added an additional industrial engineer to our staff to help us in implementation as we roll out these improvements.

Will you need a state-of-the-art distribution center to meet anticipated demand? What about a better solution within your own company-controlled facility? Additional trucking capacity?   Talk to Wagner and let us help you grow your sales. Bring it!

Have a great day!

John Wagner Jr