U.S.-bound imports bounce back in May, reports Panjiva

As was the case in April, data from Panjiva, an online search engine with detailed information on global suppliers and manufacturers, issued this week did not stick to its typical theme of flat or slight growth from April to May. Instead, it saw a fairly significant gain.

May waterborne shipments to the United States, at 938,276, were up 7 percent over April along with being up 3 percent annually. This gain was in sharp contrast to April to May differentials in recent years, which saw a 0 percent difference in 2014, a 2 percent gain in 2013, and another 0 percent difference in 2012.

On a year-to-date basis through May, total U.S. waterborne shipments are up 2 percent through the first five months of the year at 4,399,444.

One driver for the atypical May import gains centers on the recent resolution of the West Coast port labor dispute, which created turbulence on various levels, included delayed and held up shipments, and repositioning of supply chain distribution patterns by shippers, among others. Another factor is the less-than-stellar beginning to 2015 in terms of overall economic production, especially in the first quarter.

Annelise McCarthy, head of Panjiva’s customer success team, said in an interview that the low April shipment levels, when compared to the stronger shipment levels in May, looks like “course correcting” at this point, coupled with signs of improving market growth in the form of things like increased order activity.

“Historically, April to May really has not shown much change, so a 7 percent increase is atypical,” she said. “My interpretation is that things are more on track and closer to the year-over-year growth we have seen in the past five years or so.”

When asked how things are shaping up in June, McCarthy explained that based on the amount of data currently in through roughly one-third of the month, June is currently on pace for growth.

In a recent interview, Panjiva CEO Josh Green said that there are various global and domestic macroeconomic indicators related to trade that can influence U.S.-bound import numbers from one month to the next, including jobs, consumer confidence and outlook, and sluggish retail sales, among other things.

Green remains optimistic when viewing the macroeconomic outlook as it relates to import growth, with one of the key data points being jobs numbers, with the recent jobs reports showing gains in jobs and a decrease in the unemployment rate.

“That jobs data combined with some of the anecdotal things like the recent increase in minimum wage on the West Coast are all signs of an economy that continues to have strength, so my sense is that despite what happened in April, we can still anticipate a year of growth for trade,” he noted.