Inbound traffic has peaked for the year as retailers have already imported most of the goods for the holiday season. Inbound traffic was 11% below last November. This slowdown in exports (inbound traffic to the U.S.) is hitting Asian countries hard.
But even more concerning for the U.S. is that export traffic is declining sharply. For the LA area ports, outbound traffic continued to decline in November, and was 18% below the level of November 2007. Export traffic is now at about the same level as in late 2006. So much for the export boom!
From Yahoo! Finance: Weekly US rail shipments sink again last week
Shipments carried by U.S. railroads fell significantly again last week, a major industry trade group reported Thursday, as demand for everything from paper to cars continued to slow across the country.
The Association of American Railroads said freight carried on the tracks for the week ending Dec. 6 totaled 301,120 cars, down 8.5 percent from the same week a year ago. Shipments fell 10.1 percent a week earlier.
Intermodal volume fell 9.8 percent from a year ago. Intermodal involves moving freight from one method of transportation to another, such as truck to rail.
So far this year, shipments on U.S. rails are down 1.5 percent compared with the same period in 2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment