Is The Economy Looking Up?

by Tom Moore on Mar 20, 2024 2:39:00 PM

Indicators Supporting the idea that the economy is looking up:

Intermodal shipments for the week ending March 9 were up 13.5% year over year, the third straight double-digit annual increase. Source: Association of American Railroads. (Shameless plug: Had everybody used our AutoO2 software, they would have shipped 13,000 fewer that week)
Inflation ticking up
Oil price above $81 on Thursday
OnTrac is rolling out weekend deliveries, even as FedEx and UPS are scaling back. For example, UPS delivers on Sundays using the US Post Office. OnTrac’s challenge is that it needs a lot of volume to get its cost/package in line.
Dollar Tree is closing a lot of stores (~1000) and Dollar General saw a ~30% reduction in YOY annual profit . Dollar stores do well in hard times. A contrarian indicator here is theft is up.

Supply Chain Optimization