Morgan Stanley’s dry van truckload freight index continues to soften   

Morgan Stanley's dry van truckload freight index has fallen off somewhat from the pace of Q2 2010 indicating more readily available capacity at this time compared to Q2 but certainly a much tighter capacity environment than 2009. The index measures incremental demand for dry-van truckload services compared to incremental supply. The higher the index the tighter is capacity relative to demand when compared to a prior period. In Q2 it was starting to look like we may see a repeat of the TL capacity shortages of 2004 and 2005, but at this point the graph is tracking very closely to 2006 and 2008 which were strong through Q2 and then plunged toward the end of the year.

Graph reproduced with permission from Morgan Stanley Research. For further information, please contact Bill Greene William.Greene@morganstanley.com or Adam Longson Adam.Longson@morganstanley.com