According to ACT Research’s recently released Transportation Digest, the top line on the Class 8 tractor dashboard lowered in March, extending a decline that started in January.

“For the first time since the COVID recession of 2020, the top line of the 15-variable index has strayed into negative territory with a minus-three reading,” Kenny Vieth, president and senior analyst at ACT Research, said. “Looking at underlying row item behavior, we see adverse trends cropping up in the macro and financial indicators (consumer goods spending and the Dow Jones trucking stocks trends), freight metrics (Cass Freight Index) and ACT’s own data contributions, Class 8 cancellations, the order-to-build ratio and the supply-demand balance component of our for-hire index (our proprietary fleet survey). It is hard to deny that the dashboard is signaling a rockier road ahead for the market in the second half of this year as the supply-demand balance flips from constrained to easing.”