Page 28 - ATR 5 2020 digital

What the Numbers Say

Stephens’ Jack Atkins shares economic insights for trucking

By David Monteith
Contributing Writer

READING THE PAST
All data tells a story. The past is
converted into numbers and the pat-
terns in those numbers are used to
make predictions about the future.
The numbers from the last eight
months — the timespan since the coro-
navirus began spreading across the U.S.
and Arkansas — tell a story with a few
surprises. According to Jack Atkins,
it’s a cautionary tale, but not without
bright spots.
Atkins is a the managing director
of transportation research at Stephens,
Inc., a financial investment firm head- “I don’t think people really under- retailers with an online presence got a
quartered in Little Rock. He’s studied stand the impact that very limited lei- boost. The percentage of all e-commerce
the financial numbers of the trucking sure travel has had on the availability of retail sales jumped to 22 percent in April
industry for the last nine years. On the U.S. consumer to consume,” Atkins and May, double what it had been at the
August 18, at the Arkansas Trucking said. “Instead of going and spending same time the year before.
Association’s annual conference in $20,000 to fly to Europe with your fam- Additional factors, like inven-
Rogers, Atkins presented his perspective ily on vacation if you live in New York, tory restocking, have contributed to
on the story being told by the financial you’re adding a deck to the back of your an uncommon highpoint in truckload
data since the onset of the pandemic. house. I think there’s a lot of stuff mov- activity. The peak, which normally
Atkins says the early stages of the ing on a truck that would have been begins in October in response to the
pandemic went as expected. In April spent on leisure travel.” winter holidays, started in June and
and May, the economy, and most Stimulus checks from the federal shows no signs of slowing down.
trucks not carrying groceries or medi- government, and a temporary increase “The biggest surprise is we didn’t
cal supplies, ground to a halt. Statewide to unemployment benefits further know if we were going to have a back-
lockdowns rolled across the country as contributed to Americans’ willingness to-school season, if back-to-school
the virus spread. Shipments from the to spend money while stuck at home. season was going to be a little bit of
West Coast ports all but evaporated as Housing and construction reaped the damper on trucking markets. And it
other countries, also in various stages benefits, as did e-commerce. The country was not,” Atkins said.
of lockdown, stopped exporting. The transitioned from a service economy to a According to Atkins, all of these
first surprise in the data is not that the goods economy. Waiters and waitresses, factors are a good sign for rates not just
economy crashed, but in the unexpected for example, found themselves with for the rest of this year, but well into
places it began rebounding. reduced hours or out of work, but some the next. “Get rates while you can,” he

28 Issue 5 2020 | ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT