Phantom capacity, not volume: what I'm watching on the broker desk in 2026.
The volume numbers say the freight market is fine. Outbound tenders are tracking with last year. Manufacturing is showing signs of life. By any traditional read of the macro data, this should not be a stressful month. And yet first-tender acceptance is sliding from the low 90s into the mid 80s, with spot exposure 25% above what procurement assumed when they wrote the bid.
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