Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 12/13/24

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 2.4% in May after decreasing 1.7% in April. In May, the index equaled 115.4 (2015=100) compared with 112.7 in April. “Tonnage had a nice gain in May, but remains in recession territory,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “The 2.4 percent gain didn’t erase the 4.5 percent total drop the previous two months. Additionally, tonnage continues to contract from year earlier levels as retail sales remain soft, manufacturing production continues to fall from a year ago, and housing starts contract from 2022 levels.” Compared with May 2022, the SA index decreased 1.3%, which was the third straight year-over-year decrease. In April, the index was down 3.4% from a year earlier.

Trucking activity in the United States slipped in March, giving back a little more than half of the gain from February. Specifically, truck freight tonnage decreased 1.5% after surging 2.8% in February, according to the American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index. Solid manufacturing output in March, led by robust auto production, likely helped truck freight tonnage not fall more after a very strong February,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “Overall in the first quarter, tonnage increased marginally from both the fourth and first quarters of 2024. While the gains were not strong at half a percent and less, it was the first time that the quarterly average increased both sequentially and from a year earlier in two years. That tells me that the freight market did in fact turn around in the first three months of the year despite an uncertain outlook.” In March, the ATA advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index equaled 113.4, down from 115.1 in February. The index, which is based on 2015 as 100, was up 0.2% from the same month last year, the third straight year-over-year increase, which hasn’t happened since late 2022 and early 2023. The not seasonally adjusted index, which calculates raw changes in tonnage hauled, equaled 114.6 in March, 9.5% above February’s reading of 104.7.

Marketers’ disgust with online ad fraud has created an opening for our industry, but we’re not ready to take advantage of it. Our out-of-date, out-of-synch approaches to magazine advertising proposals are holding us back from taking advantage of this new opportunity. Judging from my interactions with advertising sales reps, they’re seeing fewer digital-only RFPs these days and more media-agnostic ones. Marketers who were in the “print is dead” camp now seem intrigued with the ability of print to engage their most valuable prospects. But simply buying ad pages in general-interest magazines is not their idea of effective targeting.