Rail traffic continues to rebound. Curiously, the recovery in rail traffic has substantially lagged other segments of the economy. The AAR reports:
U.S. railroads originated 285,160 carloads during the week, up 3.7 percent from the comparable week in 2009, but down 11.5 percent from 2008. In order to offer a complete picture of the progress in rail traffic, AAR now reports 2010 weekly rail traffic with comparison weeks in both 2009 and 2008.
Intermodal traffic totaled 212,296 trailers and containers, up 17.9 percent from last year and up 2.9 percent compared with 2008. Compared with the same week in 2009, container volume increased 22.6 percent and trailer volume slipped 3.2 percent. Compared with the same week in 2008, container volume was up 15.3 percent while trailer volume fell 36.2 percent.
14 of 19 commodity groups were higher on the week with metals, forest products, chemicals and motor vehicles contributing double digit gains. Comps are easy on a year over year basis so the 2008 remain useful, however, there is little bearish news in this report.
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.
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