ACT Research released the latest installment of the ACT Freight Forecast, U.S. Rate and Volume OUTLOOK report.

Tim Denoyer, ACT Research’s Vice President and Senior Analyst, said, “Freight is typically not a backlog business, but in the holiday season of 2020, with imports at record levels, we have a flotilla of containerships off Southern California waiting to unload. This bottleneck suggests strong freight volume growth will continue even after the holiday season, as retailers restock inventories.”

He continued, “The freight market imbalance of strong demand and tight driver capacity should begin to rebalance gradually after the holidays, as there is early evidence of initial easing in the driver shortage.”

He concluded, “But this month, we add a steel shortage to the list of the economic shocks emanating from COVID-19, which threatens to impact Q1’21 manufacturing activity.”