Forecasting the Spot Market: Elevated Prices and Capacity Challenges Ahead
European road price levels reached recently will most likely act as a take-off board for further increases prior to Christmas
Today, we would like to delve into the current sentiment of the spot market, compare it to last year, and outline expectations for the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Let's begin by examining the market trends since the last update. The following chart focuses on the overall distribution of spot price levels compared to contracted price levels across all the markets we monitor. To ensure accuracy and relevance, we used a truncated mean to exclude outliers.
Difference between spot and contracted prices for the past 24 months in Europe
Source: Transporeon Market Insights, own evaluation & illustration
Each value represents the difference between spot prices and contracted prices within a specific week (Index 100). For instance, in week 39 of 2024, spot prices peaked at 16.4% above contracted price levels. The elevated spot prices over the past eight weeks have exceeded my expectations from September, confirming the tightened capacity situation.