It’s not all hearts and roses and happy teddy bears holding lollipops, as it were, summed up by the variety of shrugs and SMHs the annual question on business income outlook for the new year got from Overdrive readers this year on social media.
Via Facebook, Renee Peek-Wiggins Crabtree singled out rising costs with “over-regulation, the cost of diesel fuel, driver retention, and an over-taxed industry,” she noted. It all “takes more and more. My bottom line isn’t increasing.”
Rates have been “in the sewer during 2019,” said Tom Puckett. “They will remain in the sewer for 2020. Believe it!”
Poll results, however, show a decidedly it’s got to be better than 2019 dynamic, with a great deal larger share of readers sanguine about income improvement in the year just started than was the case last year.
Those inclined toward optimism for this year may have some cyclical data on their side.
Economist Donald Broughton spoke to the rather large remaining spread between spot market and contract market averages toward the end of the year, in this piece of reporting by Max Heine, when historically it’s somewhat rare for such a large spread to remain for such a length of time.
They tend to at some point converge when shippers see opportunity in one market or another and, said Broughton:
