Freight Futures data to watch today: Freight Futures Forward Curves
Happy Thanksgiving to all! The penultimate trading session for the November spot month contracts saw relative calm return to the Trucking Freight Futures markets. As the futures markets are closed on Thursday and Friday, after Wednesday’s session, the December contracts will become the new spot month, so a look at the futures forward curves (FWD) will help give an indication of the direction of short-term rates. The spot National contract (FUT.VNU201911) settled unchanged at $1.459/mile. Also unchanged on the session were the West regional (FUT.VWU201911) and South regional (FUT.VSU201911) contracts which closed at $1.583 and $1.309, respectively. The East regional contract (FUT.VEU201911) ended the day fractionally higher to $1.486.
As was expected, trading interest in the individual lanes closely mirrored the National and Regional contracts. In the East, both the CHI to ATL (FUT.VCA201911) and ATL to PHI (FUT.VAP201911) contracts continued to show mild strength by rising fractionally to $1.912 and $1.619, respectively. The PHI to CHI contract (FUT.VPC201911) slipped 0.1% to $0.926. The West and South have been under downward pressure for the past week as a result of fundamental weakness in freight flows, particularly out of the LAX market. The LAX to DAL contract (FUT.VLD201911) fell 0.24% to end the day at $1.636 while the LAX to SEA contract (FUT.VLS201911) dipped a fraction to settle at $2.045. The SEA to LAX contract (FUT.VSL201911) ended unchanged at $1.120 and the DAL to LAX contract (FUT.VDL201911) rose 0.3$ to finish at $0.982.
