TL dry van index continues decline, showing capacity availability   

Morgan Stanley's dry van truckload freight index continues its gradual decent and is now well under the 1995-2008 average for this time of year. Capacity tightness has eased significantly compared to Q2 2010. While capacity remains tighter than in 2009, the spread between 2009 and 2010 is narrowing. 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.