07-09-2009, 07:40 PM
Their is no doubt that if you want know how the economy is doing watching bill counts of the rail and truck carriers is the way to go. They see recoveries and down turns way before economist do. We can usually tell if we are heading into a recession 6 months before the GNP numbers come out.
The problem is I can't find any information on this for public consumption.
The best place I would think is the NITL
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.nitl.org/">http://www.nitl.org/</a><!-- m -->
I get this crap in my inbox all the time but all of it is internal info. Another way to go is to follow the NVO container traffic. They see the data even before Rail and Truck carriers. I can't find a public NVO traffic data site though.
I highly recommend becoming a member of NITL if you can. Especially if you invest in stocks. You will see signs of unhealthy companies coming through shipping channels way before any financials are posted. As soon as a company starts having trouble paying his trucking company word and the street gets out fast. If a company has a bad logistics supply chain its time to get as far away from them as possible.
You can usually even see where a company is heading before his financials show it.
For example if a company usually paid their transportation bills with in 30 day terms and then suddenly ends up with a quarter of 45 to 60 days either they have a bad CFO or things are getting shakey. Their quarterly statements may not yet reflect it but the company may take a bad turn. Either that or their statements are bullshit. By the second quarter of that you will find rumblings of transportation providers starting to tighten the noose. Its time to walk away from that stock.
Their are few absolutes in the world today. Death and Taxes are two of them. The third is "always make sure your carriers are a secured lendor".
Carriers always get paid no matter how bad the company is. Carriers have lien rights on all the goods in their system. You can't make money even going through a Chapter 11 when the carriers have all of your goods on their trucks. Even the courts can't get you your freight back. It is the last real place where control is 9/10ths of the law. Lets find out just how much money you can make when your carrier holds all of your goods.
If you ever attend a bankruptcy court the very first thing a judge says in a Chapter 11 is deal with the supply chain side of things. If you don't have that lined up he sends you back to get your carrier lendors straightened out. With out that fixed you might as well re-file a chapter 7.
The other factor is once you piss off the carriers you are pretty much fucked. Even if you are Microsoft, if you screw your credit with carriers you might as well shut the doors right now. If you screw FedEx, UPS won't extend you credit and visa versa. You better have a ton of cash.
The above is why you watch those groups in order to monitor not just our economy but individual companies. They are good barameters to keep if you know what to look for.
Vllad.
The problem is I can't find any information on this for public consumption.
The best place I would think is the NITL
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.nitl.org/">http://www.nitl.org/</a><!-- m -->
I get this crap in my inbox all the time but all of it is internal info. Another way to go is to follow the NVO container traffic. They see the data even before Rail and Truck carriers. I can't find a public NVO traffic data site though.
I highly recommend becoming a member of NITL if you can. Especially if you invest in stocks. You will see signs of unhealthy companies coming through shipping channels way before any financials are posted. As soon as a company starts having trouble paying his trucking company word and the street gets out fast. If a company has a bad logistics supply chain its time to get as far away from them as possible.
You can usually even see where a company is heading before his financials show it.
For example if a company usually paid their transportation bills with in 30 day terms and then suddenly ends up with a quarter of 45 to 60 days either they have a bad CFO or things are getting shakey. Their quarterly statements may not yet reflect it but the company may take a bad turn. Either that or their statements are bullshit. By the second quarter of that you will find rumblings of transportation providers starting to tighten the noose. Its time to walk away from that stock.
Their are few absolutes in the world today. Death and Taxes are two of them. The third is "always make sure your carriers are a secured lendor".
Carriers always get paid no matter how bad the company is. Carriers have lien rights on all the goods in their system. You can't make money even going through a Chapter 11 when the carriers have all of your goods on their trucks. Even the courts can't get you your freight back. It is the last real place where control is 9/10ths of the law. Lets find out just how much money you can make when your carrier holds all of your goods.
If you ever attend a bankruptcy court the very first thing a judge says in a Chapter 11 is deal with the supply chain side of things. If you don't have that lined up he sends you back to get your carrier lendors straightened out. With out that fixed you might as well re-file a chapter 7.
The other factor is once you piss off the carriers you are pretty much fucked. Even if you are Microsoft, if you screw your credit with carriers you might as well shut the doors right now. If you screw FedEx, UPS won't extend you credit and visa versa. You better have a ton of cash.
The above is why you watch those groups in order to monitor not just our economy but individual companies. They are good barameters to keep if you know what to look for.
Vllad.