Truck Load Rates Halt 8 Week Slide 2.0

Well I look at it like this.

If This business is a continual wave that's going up or down cresting or bottoming out, there are better and worse times especially if you are leaving a good job or trying to save more money.

I think if you can choose it's best to come in right at the bottom right when it's ready to start going up so that you can enjoy all the good times and prepare for the bad. And you will pay less for a truck also as the other guys go under and Truck Sales decline.

If you come in at the end of the good time, yo're going to spend more for a truck and then make less money with it as the wave goes down.

I think especially until after the election, this really can be a very uncertain year that's coming up.

Unless you really are made out of money and you have a suit of armor on I don't think now is the time.

 

**** This****

You want to be ahead of the trend not behind it.

Being behind the trend is bad individually and collectively.

 

Every year is a very uncertain year coming up , is it not ? U guys all predicted the covid stuff i take it ? There is never a "perfect" or "good" time to start a business in my opinion. Anybody who is determined and has desire to build something for themselves can make it in any market , good or bad

 

That's the Shakespearian - like question. This forum does not answer it - it discourages to start in bad times and it does not offer much encouragement when the times seem good. You could say there is never a good time.
I'd say any time is good provided there is enough determination and financial security. Therefore, it is never a good time for those who think that trucking as a profession would be like driving RV with a cargo trailer behind.
If you are in, then you have to be in for a long time: 5-10 years to see the fruits of your growing orchard. Only then you'll see enough bad times and good times to figure out what you need to do and assess, if you got the things right. But for that starting with little cash is too risky. The market mood changes like weather in Wyoming.

Because I am a super egoist I don't want anybody new in...I don't want more competition and the rates to go down. I want to be in demand and I don't want to share the little tiny bit of market slice I have until I retire. I just want 10 more years of this year's III Quarter rates, please.

 

Trucking is like any other profession. To be more successful than your competition, you need a hook or a specialty that your competition is unable or unwilling to provide. If you start a new business only to do what everybody else is doing, you'll never achieve greater success than your competition.

Right now freight rates are high and your average O/O working through brokers and spot market rates can make a decent living. But times like this aren't the norm, they are the exception. I got in at the end of 2018 after a year of the highest rates in a long time, and by the time I started pulling my own loads everything died. But I had a specialty that I planned for before I bought my equipment, and it got me through the miserable rates of 2019 and through the beginning of the pandemic. Right now I make as much on the spot market as I do with my contract freight, but I know it won't last, and I'll have my contract clients to support me through the lean times when they return. Those who buy equipment and get in now expecting the spot market rates to hold forever and not obtaining contract freight will be in for a rude awakening when the rates fall again. It's a cycle that repeats frequently, and why there is such a high failure rate among new O/O's.

 

Customer base seems to be a necessity in a long term to secure stability. Not necessarily direct freight but also having @PPDCT (s) as friends.

 

The reason most on here tell others it's never a good time (regardless of the ups and downs of freight) is because most people coming into it, when you dig a little, they can't manage money or any of a dozen different reasons and all of them the HUGE red flags of common failures. People with illusions need a reality check. This business is unforgiving.

 

It could just be my area but I've noticed a few things over the last two weeks or so.

When there is a good paying load it's gone instantly. There's no shortage of trucks for these loads and perhaps more people are coming in now.

I also notice less loads in the lanes that I run.

The rates are are still good, it's just that there isn't that overabundance like it seems like there was, to me anyway.

Maybe it's just a momentary fluctuation...

 

I just heard that Eddy Van Halen died. What a loss.