Chart of the Week: Outbound Tender Volume Index – USA SONAR: OTVI.USA
After underperforming 2020 over Thanksgiving, the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) that measures the amount of electronic requests for truckload capacity shippers send to carriers has been averaging over 10% higher than the previous year since Dec. 22. This trend is a sign that shippers still have plenty of freight to move heading into the new year.
The OTVI is an index with a base value of 10,000 based on the tender volumes occurring on March 1, 2018. It has spent most of the past year with values over 15,000, meaning that tender volumes have been consistently 50% higher than they were in early March of 2018.
The OTVI is an index used to measure changes in truckload demand and strong directional shifts have a connection to upward or downward movement on trucking costs. While the current trend is declining, its position relative to last year is telling us this cycle is not over.
Unlike the end of 2020, when tender volumes dropped quickly throughout December, there has been more of a slower-paced decline this year. Last year, it was apparent by looking at the OTVI that shippers were expecting transportation capacity to ease as it traditionally does after the winter holidays.
In 2020, tender volumes fell 8% from Dec. 4 to 22. This year, the OTVI only dropped 4.3% over the same period.
After December, the OTVI continued to fall coming out of the holidays,…
