Flat volumes, surging costs, and your liability just changed

Week of June 01–June 06, 2026

The market firmed under everybody's feet this week, and the proof is in the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index: flat volumes, surging costs. That's not demand pulling rates up, that's capacity washing out, and it means the days of buying freight for nothing are over. Add a Supreme Court ruling that just put your carrier picks on legal trial and oil ripping toward ninety-seven a barrel, and you've got every reason to stop pricing like it's still a buyer's market.

01Supreme Court Puts Broker Vetting On Trial

The Supreme Court ruled a third party can be sued for negligent hiring, meaning you can now be held liable for the carrier you put under a load. Your monitoring, safety scores, insurance verification, and documentation just became legal armor instead of a checkbox somebody clicks at two in the afternoon. This is a paper-trail business now, and the brokers without one are the ones who get picked off.

02Screwworm Quarantine Threatens South Texas Capacity

USDA is racing to quarantine after detecting New World screwworm in Texas, and the movement restrictions ripple straight into reefer, livestock, and dry van out of Laredo and McAllen. Trucks sit, lanes slow, and carriers committed to one freight type start hunting elsewhere, right as California citrus and Florida produce are running hot. Dallas reefer jumped twenty percent and Florida posted its biggest single-week swing of the season.

03Industrial Output Drives The Freight Recovery

The downturn has decisively reversed, and ISM and the Logistics Managers' Index confirm it's manufacturing leading the upcycle, not the consumer or restocking. That means heavier loads, more flatbed, more drop trailers at plants, and consistent lane patterns tied to production schedules. Flatbed held at $2.89 this week on firm tonnage, while dry van sat resilient at $2.32.

This week's numbers

Source: DAT and EIA  ·  Week of June 2, 2026

This week's cold email line

The Supreme Court just made you liable for the carriers your brokers hire, and most desks are still vetting with a two o'clock checkbox.

Aim this at mid-size shippers moving high-value or food and beverage freight who spread loads across multiple brokers. It lands now because the ruling is days old and reframes carrier vetting from a back-office chore into a liability shield only a disciplined broker can offer.

Knowing what to say is half of it. Writing the whole sequence is the other half. If you want these turned into a real outreach campaign in your own voice, that is the thing I build.

That is the read for this week.

Andrew
The Load Letter