Railroad CEO James Foote says that the behavior of this economy is the “most puzzling” he’s seen in his 40-year career in the railroad industry. “The present economic backdrop is one of the most puzzling I have experienced in my career,” Foote told Wall Street analysts on a conference call Tuesday evening.
“Both global and U.S. economic conditions had been unusual this year, to say the least, and have impacted our volumes. You see it every week in our reported carloads,” the CSX CEO said according to Yahoo. “We are seeing a range of conflicting data points and economic indicators and regularly speak with customers who despite the recent downtime — slowdown, remain cautiously optimistic about the second half.” Foote blamed the trade war for the crushing economic data. And he’s not far off, as industrial customers are a group caught smack in the middle of the trade war – much like farmers.
CSX shares tanked 11% on Wednesday as second-quarter earnings came in 2 cents short of analyst forecasts. Sales dropped 1% to $3.06 billion, roughly in line with projections. “Although it shouldn’t have come as a shock that CSX lowered its FY19 revenue guide (the weekly industry volume data has been telegraphing macro weakness for some time), investors balked at the shortfall in yields relative to expectations. And while negative mix did have an impact, CSX also saw a sequential deceleration in core pricing in some parts of its book,” railroad analyst Allison Landry wrote in a note to clients.
“We expect solid cost side execution from CSX but weaker markets are a meaningful headwind to both EPS performance and the stock,” Landy said.
In case you need a point of reference: U.S. GDP is generally viewed to have grown by 2% in the second quarter. Judging by CSX’s results, that’s not a real number. –Yahoo
The economy has been acting odd for over a year now. The Federal Reserve will likely cut interest rates during an economic expansion, the United States government is running historically high deficits while unemployment is at low levels. There is something else going on below the surface we aren’t being told about, and yet we’re just expected to believe the mainstream media when they say things are going great.
“Carlos” took “Aaron’s” RR job, 90% of which is showing up. Quota cases and busy work. Both have very small, cold hands. Hope this clears things up.
No self starters, all of the crony capitalists around me looked mildly confused, when I said the engineer license was available, on laid-back terms, from the local train museum.
Why do these people start families.
You are placeholders.
The kind of person, literally studying the machinery, would not be wanted in your workplace. (Saw vintage ads in streetcars, a whole locomotive on a pit lift, steam powered construction equipment, that looked retro-modern, etc.)
I knew a deaf, fat with knee braces, spastic, and legally-blind retard (can’t make this up) on pills, so he would not have seizures, who said he is paid to make messes. Literally cannot diagnose the problem, much less fix something, in his own words. (Old school farm hobbyists, it was a drive train on a diesel.)
Your company, and city depts like it, are fools’ errands, used as a front to launder subsidies.
Prep for life as we know it, not teotwaki. They can’t save themselves, folks.
Great points. The BALTIC DRY INDEX is often recognized as a general Shipping Market bellwether (Trains ship commodities & finished products). The BALTIC DRY INDEX indicates a near-term reduction in demand for shipping. Businesses anticipate demand for products to wane until this switch from Chinese products is completed. (Of course the Chinese could establish FAIR TRADE practices and we would return to buying their products, if they don’t wait too long) Once we have established FAIR TRADE markets with other sources, the Chinese tariffs will become irrelevant – we won’t need their products anymore.
“… that’s not a real number.”
(Because, it’s life support.)
“…historically high deficits while unemployment is at low levels.”
(for the dysgenic and reprobate, only. Fit and intelligent people, gfy.)
You have creatures, working on your edi’s, who I would not let work on my home pc.
“You have creatures, working on your edi’s, who I would not let work on my home pc.’
I have trouble reading your posts.
You should work on putting coherent sentences together.
Begin with coherent thoughts.
You are either a grammatical genius,
or not. 🙂
CW lost me back when he was posting as Beaumont 2..
If you’re having trouble with any of my words or abbreviations just open up another window, and look it up.
edi — electronic data interchange
pc — personal computer
Big, giant companies are giving responsibility to people who can’t be trusted around the house.
Preppers, everyday people in boring situations give you enough reasons to cover your butt.
peopleofwalmart.com (in human resources, accounting, and driving the metrolink.)
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers
It’s not a question of “looking up” an abbreviation here or there. Your entire sentence constructs are schizophrenic gibberish. For instance, I do not have the remotest idea of what you’re trying to say here:
“I knew a deaf, fat with knee braces, spastic, and legally-blind retard (can’t make this up) on pills, so he would not have seizures, who said he is paid to make messes. Literally cannot diagnose the problem, much less fix something, in his own words. (Old school farm hobbyists, it was a drive train on a diesel.)”
Uh….. what???
The fact that this babbling makes sense to YOU (but nobody else) is a warning sign that your brain is not functioning properly.
Who cares what this Bozo thinks, let him go play with his choo-choos.
The Modern Survivalist site has a 15 minute video on Antifa that every Prepper should watch.
“…the United States government is running historically high deficits…”
Well, sure they are. And the government was running historically high deficits under the last president. And they will run historically high deficits under the next one, and the next one, and for the foreseeable future. You have to realize that today’s modern monetary system (yes, it’s actually MMT) works only if the debt continues to grow. It is ALL debt. If the debt were all paid off, there would be no M2 money supply except a few bills and coins. It is created (loaned) as debt with compound usury added on, and destroyed when paid for or defaulted on. The compound usury goes into the banker pocket. The compound usury must be paid by creating other loans. The fact that compound usury is an exponential function means that the money supply (debt supply) must also be an exponential function to pay it back.
Since the people are neck deep in debt and corporations are also, the government takes up the slack to borrow to keep the debt growing. In times past, the banking system would keep the debt growing through the IMF and World Bank by indebting foreign “developing” countries. They are mostly maxxed out now. In fact the whole world is mostly drowning in debt and can’t take on much more. This is why there is a slow down in world GDP. GDP is a measure of goods and services produced. That’s just word manipulation that means growth of debt because the main service being counted is “financial service”…meaning the creation of debt instruments and financialization of whatever resources they can. ALL growth is actually just measured by growth of debt.
The debt will stop growing when there are not enough resources left to back up industrial civilization. Then the trucks and ships and trains grind to a halt and Mad Max ensues. Billions of unfunded liabilities will be liquidated. Try not to be one of them. A warlord, mebbe a benevolent ruler, will rule over what’s left locally. “Greetings from the Humongous…the Lord Humongous…warrior of the wasteland… the Ayatollah of rock and rollah.” Sheesh, I’m rambling… mebbe I shoulda cut a Xanax in half instead of sprinkling them all over my cereal.
Anyway, save some food back, but enjoy life now, because no one gets out alive.
As an engineer with one of the biggest railroads in the country not own by Buffet with over 2 decades of experience, let me clue you guys in on what is going on. CSX is still on life support after hiring a guy named Hunter Harrison that sought to streamline the railroad and boost their operational profit margin. It nearly destroyed them but it boosted their short term profits and all the execs got huge multi-billion dollar bonuses.My railroad is following suite and it is destroying itself as we speak. Everybody is fat, dumb and happy when you are eating your seedcorn, but next year you starve along with everyone that depends on you for that food. The execs will destroy their company, collect their bonuses, get their golden parachute, and bail before it all falls apart. Not unlike the rest of corporate america.
A CEO, who tells you that the market is puzzling. Why do you work for this person. Yes, really.