TOP 100 TRANSPORTATION AND LOGISTICS SITES
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| Baltic Dry Index on Nine-Day Winning Streak Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit: The Baltic Dry Index is used to track the globalization trade, as it measures the supply and demand for the shipment of goods around the world based on transport costs. The Baltic Dry Index has had some big ups and downs this year, going on multiple winning and losing streaks. This year alone, the index has had a 17-day winning streak, a 21-day losing streak, and it's currently on another 9-day winning streak. The trend in 2009 has been upward, however, as the index is up 145%. And it's still important to remember that we're working off a very low base after the globalization bubble burst last year. The index is still off 84% from its highs in May of 2008.click to enlargeComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Excess Retail Footage: How Americans Use Land Stupidly Ryan Avent submits: Part of the Times Magazine’s big Infrastructure issue, this piece on the excess in America’s retail infrastructure by Rob Walker is pretty interesting. The stats on retail square footage per person in America look remarkably like vehicle miles traveled per person, gasoline consumed, and carbon emitted per person — Americans have a lot more than “similar” nations like Canada and Australia, and a lot more than basically every other developed nation. Why? Because we use land incredibly stupidly. Even in good times, American development patterns encourage retailers to build in ways that lead to high structural levels of vacancy; when it costs nothing to build a big box store on a greenfield, then you build a cheap, ugly warehouse, and when you outgrow it you build a bigger cheap, ugly warehouse across the street, leaving the first one vacant. Walker’s piece focuses on issues of reuse, but as I believe I’ve mentioned before, the problem is simply that development patterns in the suburbs and exurbs are remarkably inflexible. Just as there’s no way to adjust suburban single-family subdivisions for higher densities, there’s not really any good way to turn a big box space into something other than a big box store. Buildings at strip malls designed for stand alone restaurants or drive-throughs don’t repurpose well; they stay restaurants or they sit vacant.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Republic Airways Holdings Inc. Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (RJET)Q2 2009 Earnings CallJuly 30, 2009 10:00 am ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
The Western Union Company Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript The Western Union Company (WU)Q3 2009 Earnings CallOctober 20, 2009 8:30 am ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Auto Sales Still Running Rough Wall Street Strategies submits:Another month is now behind us and it seems that the hangover from Cash for Clunkers took a few months to hit the market. Sales were relatively muted and, after reading the releases, it felt like something was missing.Cash for Clunkers is now a distant memory, and if the previous months were any indication, it would have been a good memory with few negative ramifications. However, for the first time, despite easy comparisons, auto sales showed signs of that dreaded hangover. There is no question that sales have stabilized, but sequentially, every automaker we monitor saw a sequential decline, which is in stark contrast July, August and October. We hate the term less bad, but we again have to use it as sales have been slowly building off the bottom of earlier this year.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |