Two big parts of our industry are bouncing back very strong and getting the attention of financial media outside of trucking.
One is truck makers. A report from Market News International, among others, notes rising orders for heavy-duty trucks as the economy heats up and carriers replace equipment that has aged too long. For example, Daimler announced recently it will add about 1,300 jobs at all of its truck and parts manufacturing facilities during the first half of the year to fulfill orders.
Kyle Treadway, a major Kenworth dealer in the Northwest and chairman of the American Truck Dealers division of the national Automobile Dealers Association, “said his heavy-duty trucks sales this year topped his expectations, the last 45 days having brought a particular surge in demand.”
The other hot sector is “so-called asset-lite” large companies with strong broker and logistics divisions and reliance on owner-operators instead of company drivers, says Bloomberg.com. “Shares of these brokers have risen 6.9 percent since July 30, 2010, compared with a 1.5 percent decline” for more traditional carriers, the story says.
