U.S. heavy truck sales reflect an interesting divergence in an industry caught between a decline in volume and a supply-side squeeze.
Under traditional conditions, a look at the data would suggest that an economy-wide contraction is imminent. But because of the rapid increase in AI-related investment and a sustained increase in spending by higher-income households, that is likely not to occur.
Recent data shows that new heavy truck purchases collapsed to 339,000 on a seasonally adjusted annual basis in October and November, the lowest since 2009, before rebounding to 459,000 in January.
The year-over-year growth rate, which was deeply negative in the second half of last year, has only just begun to claw back toward zero. This is not a demand-led recovery; it is fleet replacement after an extended purchase freeze.
Get Joe Brusuelas’s Market Minute economic commentary every morning. Subscribe now.
That freeze came as fleets put off capex spending last year amid weakening freight volumes. Now, the aging of the installed truck base is forcing some minimum level of replacement buying. The 12-month moving average continues to slide, meaning the structural trend in fleet investment remains contractionary.
Cass freight shipments confirms the demand picture. The Cass shipment index has now declined year-over-year for 23 consecutive months, with January at 0.886—a level not seen since May 2020 as the pandemic took hold. This is the longest sustained freight volume contraction since the 2008–09 recession.
Domestic goods movement—the physical proxy for industrial GDP—is telling us that the goods economy, hampered by tariffs, has not recovered from the post-stimulus normalization and that consumer spending continues to rotate toward services and away from durable goods that generate truck freight.
The takeaway
The critical macro signal is the divergence between volumes and pricing. While shipment volumes are at near-recessionary levels, the Cass-inferred freight rate has risen to about 16% year over year.
Simultaneously, the Truckstop.com New Market Demand Index spiked to 108.7 in January—a 156% month-over-month jump—while truck availability plunged to 16,400 postings, down from 25,000 just six months earlier.
This pattern of falling volumes paired with rising rates and shrinking capacity is the signature of a supply-side purge. Carriers are exiting the market faster than freight demand is declining.
Two-plus years of sub-breakeven spot rates have forced marginal operators out, and fleet capex deferrals (visible in the truck sales collapse) mean supply is not keeping up with demand.
For the macro outlook, this is stagflationary in character for the goods sector, with weaker activity paired with rising freight costs that will pass through to producer prices.
The Federal Reserve should take note. This is supply-driven inflation pressure emerging from an industrial contraction, not from overheating demand.
The risk is that transportation cost inflation reignites goods-sector inflation just as the services disinflation trend gives the Fed room to ease.
