Still surging…
Last week 675.7k railcars shipped, an increase of 1200 over the prior week and the second highest total of the year (set 4 weeks ago) bringing the 4 week average to yet another yearly high. Further, Canadian/Mexican traffic dipped slightly for the week meaning there was even more strength in the US numbers that what the 1200 railcar gain would indicate.
If that is not enough, the one part we were worried about a month ago, the scrap/waste shipping levels now appear to be solidly on the upswing again as they have risen for 4 consecuative weeks also. Auto shipments have maintained their strong rebound. Read about the auto/scrap/waste correlation to the US economy here
When Warren Buffett was a young investor and wanted to gauge the strength of the US economy he would go and count railcars (wasn’t the internet in the 50’s-60’s). If you want to push past all the headlines/noise and the news….it is still the easiest way to go about finding hoe healthy the economy is
One reply on “$$ Rail Traffic Hits Another Yearly High……”
[…] Even rail/waste traffic, historically one of the most accurate gauges of economic activity is being totally ignored both by analysts and the media. Anyone watching the results there is not surprised by August’s ISM number…… not surprised at all as August rail traffic surged. In order to be shocked you’d have to either ignore the rail numbers, OR believe that we can see increased rail traffic in the US without a corresponding increase in manufacturing activity. Doesn’t happen.. […]