More of the same here. Rail traffic is still expanding, but showing definite signs of sluggishness. This week’s reading of 1.9% brought the 3 month average to 2.6% growth. That’s certainly in-line with the growing, but very sluggish economy. Here’s more from the AAR:
“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported mixed weekly rail traffic for the week ending November 10, 2012, with U.S. railroads originating 283,414 carloads, down 5.4 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 249,531 trailers and containers, up 1.9 percent compared with the same week last year.
Twelve of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2011, with petroleum products, up 45.5 percent; farm products excluding grain, up 24 percent, and motor vehicles and equipment, up 13.6 percent. The groups showing a decrease in weekly traffic included metallic ores, down 20.9 percent; coal, down 15.5 percent, and grain, down 9.8 percent.
Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was down 5.7 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was down 5.2 percent compared with the same week in 2011.
For the first 45 weeks of 2012, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 12,784,473 carloads, down 3 percent from the same point last year, and 10,694,270 trailers and containers, up 3.4 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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