ATA October truck tonnage data trends down after a strong September

October truck tonnage data, which was issued by the American Trucking Associations (ATA) this week, saw declines, following a decent September.

The ATA’s advanced Seasonally Adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index for October—at 106.8 (2015=100)—slipped 6.3%, following a 5.7% September gain (revised down from an original reading of a 6.7% gain), to 114.

On an annual basis, SA tonnage dropped 8.7% compared to October 2019, marking the seventh consecutive month of annual declines. And on a year-to-date basis through October, SA tonnage is down 3.9%.

The ATA’s not seasonally-adjusted (NSA) index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by fleets before any seasonal adjustment and the metric ATA says fleets should benchmark their levels with, came in at 114.4, marking a 2.7% increase over September’s 111.4 reading.

“While there are indications that the economy is losing momentum, I believe October’s tonnage softness was more of a seasonal issue during a pandemic than anything else,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello in a statement. “Typical seasonality is off this year and it was a reason why October was down so much. Not seasonally adjusted tonnage was down a fraction as much as normal over the last five years during September, leading to a big seasonally adjusted gain. However, that means October’s not seasonally adjusted tonnage grew less than half as much as it typically does, leading to a big drop in the seasonally adjusted figure. There are plenty of carriers still saying that tonnage, retail tonnage in particular, is good.”  

Costello’s assessment was echoed in the most recent edition of the Cass Freight Index Report, which was released earlier this month by Cass Information Systems.

In its October report, Cass said that October shipments—at 1.180—headed up 2.4% annually, which moved the reading into positive territory and represents the strongest growth for the metric, going back to October 2018, as well as highest reading since September 2019, while up 27.8% compared to the low point seen last April. October shipments were 0.3% ahead of September.

“One of the drivers of the recent resurgence in freight activity has been healthy consumer spending, as U.S. retail sales had another very good month, increasing 5.2% in October,” wrote David Ross, the report’s author and transportation analyst at Stifel. “This was driven by a mixture of the continued reopening of the economy and businesses, schools starting back up, and optimism around healthcare advances, including a vaccine (there are >20 in various trial phases presently). The momentum of good news has continued after the election, as optimism further increased, due to the declared positive results showed by at least a couple of the vaccines still in trial and the promise of Operation Warp Speed to get them out ASAP when ready.”