Consumers, Governments Spent like Drunken Sailors in Q1. Private Investment Plunge & Inventory Change Dogged GDP by Wolf Richter • Apr 27, 2023 • 71 Comments Americans came out of their funk they’d been in late last year. They’re 70% of GDP. They blew money left and right; spending on durable goods spiked!
Global Supply Chain Pressure Index Drops Below Average for First Time since Aug. 2019, after Horrendous Spikes by Wolf Richter • Mar 6, 2023 • 112 Comments Inflation in goods normalized, but has exploded in services where there are no supply chain issues.
US Trade Deficit 2022: Imports, Exports of Goods and Services, by Product Category and Country by Wolf Richter • Feb 8, 2023 • 141 Comments Ugliest-ever trade deficit. But US exports grew to $2 trillion, 10% was crude oil & petroleum products. Pharma & industrial machinery exports were #3 and #4.
Are Tech Layoffs in San Francisco and Silicon Valley the Latest Hit to Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)? by Wolf Richter • Jan 9, 2023 • 100 Comments BART was already “facing a fiscal cliff” after working from home and driving to work caused revenues to collapse.
Truck Congestion at Worst Bottlenecks (MPH), Barge Rates on the Mississippi (WHOOSH), China-US Container Freight Rates by Wolf Richter • Dec 30, 2022 • 100 Comments Three tidbits with charts from the Transportation Statistics Annual Report 2022.
What Freight Volume and Freight Rates Say About the Shift of Consumer Spending from Goods Back to Services by Wolf Richter • Jul 18, 2022 • 64 Comments Freight volume is down from the red-hot levels last year, but remains relatively high, after the grotesquely overstimulated demand last year.
Why Delivery Giants Walmart, Amazon, FedEx & UPS even Deal with Collapsing EV Startups: EV SPAC Canoo is the Latest by Wolf Richter • Jul 12, 2022 • 194 Comments Scaring legacy automakers into finally producing electric cargo vans is like pulling teeth.
Container Ship Wait-Times at Shanghai Fall, Still High. Container Freight Rates Drop, Still 4x of 2019: “Stabilization of Supply Chain Pressures at Historically High Levels” by Wolf Richter • Jun 6, 2022 • 33 Comments Supply chains improve from catastrophically stressed to just very stressed.
US Natural Gas Futures Spiked to Highest since 2008, Tripled in a Year: Why We Kissed that Dirt-Cheap Natural Gas Goodbye by Wolf Richter • May 25, 2022 • 151 Comments The boom in natural gas exports creates massive demand on US production and connects US prices to the rest of the world.
Signs of a Downshift in the Freight Cycle, Trucking, and Demand by Wolf Richter • May 12, 2022 • 56 Comments Amid constraints, shortages, and spiking diesel prices, freight volume slows, capacity opens up, freight rates may have peaked.
