While the sky still isn’t falling, there are “more ominous clouds on the horizon” that bear watching moving forward, one being a “significant” uptick in trailer cancellations for a second consecutive month, according to this month’s issue of ACT Research’s State of the Industry: U.S. Trailers report.
ACT’s U.S. Trailers report provides a monthly review of the current U.S. trailer market, as well as trailer OEM build plans and market indicators divided by all major trailer types, including backlogs, build, inventory, new orders, cancellations, net orders, and factory shipments.
“While the broad-based nature of cancellations suggests the turn is starting to come into focus, this is juxtaposed against a backdrop of rather robust backlogs, even with declining orders,” Jennifer McNealy, ACT’s director of CV market research and publications, said in a news release. “The seasonally adjusted backlog-to-build (BL/BU) ratio gained 120 basis points month-over-month, to 8.0 months in May. Seasonal adjustment takes dry van BL/BU to 7.4 months and reefers to 9.1, so despite the improvement in build, this essentially commits the industry through year-end 2023.”
