Despite modest expectations Port Tracker report calls for growth in coming months

While school has not been out of session for all that long, it is not too early to start thinking about later this summers and early fall, when things start back up. That was the main message, especially from an import perspective, in the most recent edition of the Port Tracker report issued today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and maritime consultancy Hackett Associates. 

The ports surveyed in the report include: Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, Houston, New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston, and Savannah, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Port Everglades. Authors of the report explained that cargo import numbers do not correlate directly with retail sales or employment because they count only the number of cargo containers brought into the country, not the value of the merchandise inside them, adding that the amount of merchandise imported provides a rough barometer of retailers’ expectations.

“Back-to-school and the holidays are the two biggest shopping seasons of the year for retailers and these numbers reflect that,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement. “After a year of difficult comparisons in the wake of the West Coast ports slowdown, we’re finally starting to see normal trends. Some numbers are still down from last year, but the pattern of building up toward the big seasons has returned.”

For May, the most recent month for which data is available, total volume was 1.63 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU), which was up 12.8 percent from April and up 1.1 percent annually. June and July are expected to hit 1.56 million TEU and 1.64 million TEU, which would mark a 0.5 percent decrease and a 1.4 percent increase, respectively.

Looking ahead, Port Tracker explained the back-to-school effect is expected to kick in, with what it termed a “small but significant” increase in July as retailers gear up for back-to-school season, followed by more heightened activity in late summer and early fall––in terms of volumes–– in advance of the holiday shopping season.

August is estimated at 1.65 million TEU for a 2 percent annual dip, while still expected to be the peak shipping month of 2016, with September at 1.58 million TEU for a 2.6 percent decrease. October and November are pegged at 1.62 million TEU and 1.52 million TEU for a 4.4 percent increase and a 2.8 percent increase, respectively.

Port Tracker said that the first half of 2016 is expected to come in at 8.99 million TEU, which would represent a 1.5 percent annual gain over the same period in 2015.

In the report Hackett Associates Founder Ben Hackett wrote that its full-year 2016 growth forecast has inched up to 1.2 percent, with most of that growth coming from the West Coast.

“This growth comes in the face of some adverse statistics as well as positive ones,” he wrote. “May’s new orders for manufactured goods were reported down one percent, following two consecutive monthly increases. Inventories remain virtually unchanged for non-defense categories.”

And he pointed to retail sales being positive, with consumers continuing to cautiously spend, coupled with the hope that it continues into June’s data, too. Even with retail sales growth, he cautioned that the rate of economic growth is among the weakest levels recorded going back to the height of the financial crisis in 2008-2009.