Rail traffic data remained mixed this week with the AAR reporting another decline in carloads and an increase in intermodal traffic. Intermodal was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis, but the 10 week moving average continued to slip at 2.5%. The year to date data for carloads is actually DOWN 1.4% this year. AAR has the details:
“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported mixed weekly rail traffic for the week ending March 10, 2012, with U.S. railroads originating 278,728 carloads, down 4.8 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 226,039 trailers and containers, up 4.2 percent compared with the same week last year.
Eleven of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2011, with petroleum products, up 39.9 percent; motor vehicles and equipment, up 14.8 percent, and metallic ores, up 11.5 percent. The groups showing a significant decrease in weekly traffic included coal, down 13.1 percent, and coke, down 10.3 percent.
Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was down 3.8 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was down 5.4 percent compared with the same week in 2011.
For the first ten weeks of 2012, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 2,834,520 carloads, down 1.4 percent from last year, and 2,226,134 trailers and containers, up 2.3 percent from last year.”
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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