How This Freight Cycle Could Last

Freight's cycle-ending forces are still stacking up, but Reliance Partners ' Chief Revenue Officer Thom Albrecht sat down with us to discuss why this one might last.

Nearly 360 trucking, freight brokerage, and insurance professionals packed the Grand Hyatt Nashville for the 5th Annual Trucking Matters Seminar Series , Reliance Partners' largest turnout yet for an event that started with 160 attendees in its first year. Over two days, the agenda moved from federal safety policy to cargo theft, credit risk, and the future of freight brokerage. The event opened, as it has in years past, with Albrecht's signature freight, capacity, and economic update.

Albrecht split his presentation into two parts. The first was a traditional read on the health of the consumer and businesses, along with the broader economy. The second, framed as "a tale of two cities," dug into the structural overhaul reshaping trucking capacity and why he believes the industry may be entering a freight cycle unlike any in the past two decades.

The economic data paints a mixed picture. Inflation-adjusted wages had strung together 35 straight months of gains after a brutal 25-month stretch of declines until April and May of this year turned negative again. Consumers are still climbing out of a purchasing-power hole.

Category-level inflation is an even messier story than the approximately 3.5% headline CPI figure suggests. As of the 5th Annual Trucking Matter Seminar, Gasoline was up 26.7% year over year even as it fell nearly 10% in June alone; lettuce and tomatoes were up 23.8%; coffee climbed 18.5%. Meanwhile, bacon, used vehicles, and eggs were all down on a year-over-year basis. Savings rates, sitting near 3% against a historical average north of 8%, left little cushion. Credit card delinquencies at 90 days had climbed back to 7.1%, still shy of the Great Financial Crisis peak but well above the lows of early 2022.

Business demand, Albrecht noted, was not robust, but better than in 2025. Customer inventories remained near survey-history lows. That's good news for freight creation as this year's replenishment freight has been steadier than a year ago. AI-related capital spending, meanwhile, accounted for nearly 70% of first half 2026 GDP growth. Strip out AI, tech, and government spending, and the rest of the economy actually contracted slightly in Q1 and barely grew in Q2.

Housing has been "stuck" for nearly four years. Existing home sales per 1,000 households had fallen to roughly 26, well below the 44-59 range of the 2000s and 2010s, with affordability consuming an estimated 43% of household disposable income against a more affordable level around 30%.