Dry Van & Reefer: Market Signals You Can’t Ignore

Despite trending lower, dry van tender rejection rates still indicate a tight market. Learn why capacity isn’t expanding, even as carriers face cost pressures outpacing revenue growth. We’ll dive into the latest SONAR data, including regional rate maps and intermodal volumes, to uncover the hidden signals in today’s fragile freight market.

Dry van tender rejection rates have drifted lower over the past few months but remain around 11%, a level that still signals a tight market, according to FreightWaves analyst Zach Strickland. Despite the slow softening, Strickland cautioned that the market has not meaningfully loosened — carriers and shippers alike should not expect relief soon, particularly with peak season approaching and capacity growth still lagging.

Spot rates, tracked by the National Truckload Index, have held firm after pulling back slightly from a July 4th peak. Strickland noted that input cost pressures — flagged explicitly in J.B. Hunt’s earnings and echoed across most major carriers — have outpaced revenue gains, reducing the financial incentive for new owner-operators to enter the market. “The costs have really outpaced the revenue growth gains,” he said. “Doesn’t mean they’re losing money necessarily, but that doesn’t mean that we have the ample amount of cash flowing into the space that we had during COVID or even the 2018 market.”

This story was originally published by FreightWaves. Read the full story at FreightWaves →