{"id":1924,"date":"2016-04-06T17:18:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T17:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/ftr-us-economy-safe-but-inventories-hold-back-demand\/"},"modified":"2025-01-10T16:50:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T16:50:22","slug":"ftr-us-economy-safe-but-inventories-hold-back-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/ftr-us-economy-safe-but-inventories-hold-back-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"FTR: US Economy Safe, but Inventories Hold Back Demand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The pavement isn&rsquo;t cracking underneath the freight economy, but expect demand to only rise modestly over the next several months, said Eric Starks, president of FTR Transportation Intelligence, at a Fleet Forum business conference, co-sponsored by <em>Heavy Duty Trucking<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>He said, overall, the U.S. economy is robust and \u00a0\u00ab\u00a0nowhere near\u201d slipping into recession, despite some industrial production running in \u201cfits and starts\u201d and that freight capacity currently \u201crelatively loose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As reported by HDT, Starks cited several positive indicators in the U.S. economy, such as including employment, auto and light truck sales, stable fuel prices, and a modest rebound in housing. However, he added that both retail sales and business activity remain flat. He said for 2016 GDP growth is forecast to grow at very sluggishly, from 1.8 to 2.0%.<\/p>\n<p>Starks said a big part of what\u2019s holding businesses back is excessive inventories, which he cited as \u201ca structural problem, throughout the commercial-vehicle market and the economy at large.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInventory levels are now problematic,\u201d he continued. \u201cToo much inventory reduces demand for freight transportation. We need to see inventories go down before [business] orders can pick up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Starks also cautioned that the drag on fleet operations from regulations, such as for electronic log devices and speed-limiters, is expected to affect utilization.<\/p>\n<p>He said it remains to be seen if this will result in a need to make up for a decline in operational utilization. \u201cA lot of [regulatory] pressure on drivers will compel carriers to boost productivity,\u201d Starks noted. \u201cSome of that will require educating shippers. Some may have to \u2018fire\u2019 shippers who don\u2019t get what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The pavement isn&rsquo;t cracking underneath the freight economy, but expect demand to only rise modestly over the next several months, said Eric Starks, president of FTR Transportation Intelligence, at a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[30,21,583,613,614,615,174,98,24],"class_list":["post-1924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-conditions","tag-capacity","tag-economy","tag-freight-demand","tag-ftr","tag-inventory","tag-market","tag-productivity","tag-shippers","tag-supply-chain"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}