Freight News, Logistics

Freight confidence stutters

[ August 26, 2014   //   Chris ]

Uncertainty in the global market contributed to a dip of 0.4 points in the latest Stifel Logistics Confidence Index to 55.7. The decline was particularly noticeable in airfreight, which declined 3.3 points to 54.7 while the sea freight expectation component declined only 0.7 points to 61.0. Moreover, the expected situation on airfreight noted a large decline of 3.3 points to 54.7. All lanes recorded declines with Europe to US and Europe to Asia noting the largest at 4.8 points and 4.5 points respectively, perhaps an indication of a cloudy economic forecast or possibly the timing of the 2015 Chinese New Year.

In its monthly question, Stifel asked respondents if they have converted any airfreight to sea freight and/or ocean freight to airfreight in the past 12 months: 48% said they had converted some airfreight to ocean freight whereas 38.7% indicated some conversion from sea freight to airfreight. Several respondents also indicated a shift from air to rail and also ocean to rail.

Tags: Stifel