New York–The monthly FreightWaves State of Freight webinar has migrated to FreightWaves Today, but a gathering of shippers in New York Tuesday brought together by its sister company SONAR got a chance to hear its two key analysts–Craig Fuller and Zach Strickland–opine on a market they described as "fragile."
Unlike earlier State of Freight webinars in the first part of 2026, SONAR and FreightWaves CEO Fuller and director of market intelligence Strickland this time were measuring a market that was not moving higher in leaps and bounds. To the contrary, the Sonar Tender Rejection Index (STRI) has moved down from its recent peaks before taking a sharp upward move in the days leading up to the event at the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport.
The shipper gathering was sponsored by Cass Information Systems along with SONAR.
That sort of recent movement in the STRI is why the term fragile was raised.
Strickland noted that tender rejections–contracted freight that is not picked up by a carrier in the contract relationship, which is permissible under its terms–are a good barometer of market strength.
"Rates have inflationary pressure on them," Strickland said. "Tender rejections do not. So it's a lit...