These companies are selling as many components for big trucks as they can pop off the production line. No surprise they re happy campers. It tells us that our appetite for new equipment shows no sign of abating. Because it s trucking s capacity to gobble up new trucks more this year than ever before that drives the revenue growth in the supplier market. That means the Freightliners, Navistars, Volvos and Macks of the world have been keeping the suppliers busy on behalf of their customers.
Most observers say no.
When the curtain falls as it surely will on this period of economic bliss, the cause will be macroeconomic, not industry-specific, most analysts say. A nationwide recession or a return of economic chaos to Asia or Latin America, for example, could very well spark a contraction in trucking. While some analysts have been forecasting an imminent dip in the economy, and thus in the freight business, the U.S. economy continues to churn along, with inflation seemingly well under control. And there are new signs of life in the economies of the Asian nations that have been in recession for some time, which should pump new blood into the world s trade stream. For now, a good time is being had by almost all.