Cass index shows freight rates finding a floor in March

In April 2024, the Cass Freight Index report for March described the freight market as "steady as we go." Shipments slipped slightly from February, but their year-over-year decline was the smallest in a year. The report was released in mid-April.

Shipments

The shipments component of the index fell 0.2% from February to 1.113. In seasonally adjusted terms it fell 2.3%, giving back a February gain tied to the leap day.

Shipments were down 3.6% from March 2023. Cass said underlying volumes improved in the first quarter, rising about 2% from the fourth quarter of 2023 on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The report said freight demand was broadly better than the for-hire market showed, but that it was "hard to see amid ongoing private fleet growth." The index fell 5.5% in 2023. Cass said that with normal seasonality, shipments would fall 2% to 3% year over year in April and turn positive in June.

Spending and rates

The expenditures component, which measures total freight spending, rose 0.1% from February to 3.227 but was down about 18% from a year earlier. U.S. freight spending by that measure fell 19% in 2023, after a record 38% surge in 2021 and a 23% increase in 2022.

Cass Inferred Freight Rates, calculated by dividing expenditures by shipments, were down 15.4% from a year earlier. They had declined 15% to 21% year over year for 10 straight months. On a seasonally adjusted basis, inferred rates rose 1.0% from February, from what the report called "what increasingly looks like a floor."

The Cass Truckload Linehaul Index rose 0.2% to 140.83 and was down 4.7% from a year earlier, a decline that continued to narrow.

What it meant for carriers

The report said rates were increasingly likely to begin moving higher. Even so, it said freight "will very likely remain deflationary" in 2024. With normal seasonal patterns, Cass projected inferred rates down 8% for the full year and expenditures down about 9%.