Truckload spot market posts jump 10.8% as seasonal demand rises on DAT One Network

Data recently issued on the DAT One network provided to LM by DAT Freight & Analytics highlighted strong seasonal trends for truckload spot market posts, for the week of April 20-26.

The firm said that spot load posts for the week were up 10.8% sequentially, coming in at 2.25 million, which helped to counter declines seen in previous weeks, as well as signaling high seasonality with retail goods and produce on the move.

“The number of posted loads on DAT One increased 10.8% week over week to 2.25 million, reversing declines from the previous week and signaling high seasonality with retail goods and produce on the move,” said DAT. “Truck posts, which typically rise from Week 16 to Week 17, fell 7.3% to 243,864. That’s a 45% decline in truck posts year over year, and the lowest Week 17 total in at least nine years. Average spot rates rose marginally despite higher volumes and tighter capacity.”

The weekly breakdown for van loads, van equipment, load-to-truck ration and linehaul rates for Dry Vans, Reefers (refrigerated), and flatbeds provided by DAT is below:

Dry Vans:

• Van loads: 854,216, up 14.2% week over week;
• Van equipment: 172,542, down 6.8%; and
• Linehaul rate: $1.61 net fuel, up 1 cent

Reefers:

• Reefer loads: 437,173, up 18.5% week over week;
• Reefer equipment: 44,057, down 9.6%; and
• Linehaul rate: $1.90 net fuel, up 1 cent

Flatbeds

• Flatbed loads: 964,251, up 5.0% week over week;
• Flatbed equipment: 27,265, down 7.0%; and
• Linehaul rate: $2.17 net fuel, up 1 cent

DAT iQ industry analyst Dean Croke said that as importers push products into supply chains ahead of more tariff uncertainty, the number of posted van loads in DAT’s Los Angeles market increased by 32% compared to the previous week. Stockton, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City were the top destination markets. And he added that the average linehaul rate from Los Angeles was $1.72 a mile, up 1 cent week over week, with L.A.-Las Vegas paying the highest average lane rate at $3.12 a mile.

“On DAT’s Top 50 van lanes ranked by the volume of loads moved, carriers were paid an average of $1.89 a mile, unchanged for the second week and 28 cents higher than the national 7-day rolling average spot rate,” said Croke. “Reefer load-post volumes rose for the third week as produce season picked up in the U.S. Southeast and West. While load posts increased, U.S. domestic produce volumes are 23% lower year over year, and California volumes are 49% lower. Florida reefer rates jumped week over week, led by the Lakeland market, where the weekly average gained 18 cents to $1.89 a mile. Atlanta was the top destination.”

DAT Chief of Analytics Ken Adamo recently told LM that in looking at the flatbed market, it is probably the most talked about sector of the market right now, which has been seen in load-to truck data, which DAT tracks as a type of an early warning indicator, with rates coming back from March levels.

“As we have gotten into April with the tariff scare and some clamping down on purchasing and delivery of raw, heavy materials, coupled with the collapse in oil prices, it has kind of tempered back some of that rally for flatbeds,” he said. “But we saw basically from the end of January through the end of March, was tear that the flatbed market went on, and subsequently, as people caught on, it's just been talked about a lot. The refrigerated side is seeing a slow start to produce and just a general kind of malaise in refrigerated shipping. Those numbers are barely off last year’s trend.”

As for dry van, Adamo said that it is kind of right in the middle, with some distance between where rates were last year and where they are now, with industry stakeholders hoping for more market momentum at this point, while activity has been dinted by ongoing tariff actions causing a lot of uncertainty.

And he added that level of uncertainty is not the type of uncertainty that can be planned around, like tropical weather, mudslides, or floods, for example. In examining President Trump’s first term in office, he cited tax cuts, the ELD mandate, and even the pandemic as things that the market could take into concern, calibrate, and plan around, which essentially remained the case until the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

“What we are seeing now are these types of periods, or cycle reversals, seemingly every week,” he said. “If tariff actions keep getting delayed, there is going to continue to be this wild oscillation—that is just not volatility that this market is going to benefit from.”

What’s more, Adamo said that going forward, industry stakeholders are likely to see the effects of the ongoing uncertainty in the form of higher rates, with the market pricing in that uncertainty in the contract market, whereas in the spot market it comes down to lid on the lack of volume.

“We've been saying for a while that the market is pretty much at equilibrium,” said Adamo. “We saw March was the first month in 31 months that net carrier counts were positive as reported by FMCSA. It's all good news, but you still need that lid to come off, which is getting the capacity situation sorted. Now we need volume to come back to spring rates into action. And you see that with flatbed without a doubt. There's evidence there that the market is just waiting for demand volume to start. I think it's the start and stops. There was a period there in March where we saw we were averaging over a million loads a day for the first time in a long time, the first time in two or three years. But last week’s [tariff developments] choked it back off again. There is also sort of this false frenzy calling for shippers to pull forward in anticipation of tariff announcements, and if things keep getting delayed that is going to stop.”