The latest data from the AAR on rail traffic continues to point to a softening overall trend in the economy. They reported another substantial decline in carloads while intermodal continued its trend lower, but remains positive at +1.6% year over year. The breadth of the data is also increasingly weak so it’s not all coal at this point. Just 12 of the 20 commodity groups were up compared to last year. The 10 week moving average softened to 1.4% from 2.9% last week. Clearly, the trend is lower, but still positive. Consistent, in my opinion, with a muddle through economy. Here’s more from AAR:
“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported mixed weekly rail traffic for the week ending April 14, 2012, with U.S. railroads originating 276,789 carloads, down 6.4 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 234,157 trailers and containers, up 1.6 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 39 percent; metallic ores, up 16.7 percent, and motor vehicles and equipment, up 15.3 percent. The groups showing a significant decrease in weekly traffic included farm products excluding grain, down 28.1 percent; coal, down 18.2 percent, and grain, down 16.3 percent.
Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was down 2 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was down 9.4 percent compared with the same week in 2011.
For the first 15 weeks of 2012, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 4,226,853 carloads, down 3.1 percent from the same point last year, and 3,393,755 trailers and containers, up 2.4 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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