U.S.-bound shipments in April see slight annual decline, reports Panjiva

The pace of United States-bound waterborne shipments on a year-to-date basis through April is mildly mixed compared to the same period a year ago, according to recent data issued by Panjiva, an online search engine with detailed information on global suppliers and manufacturers.

April shipments––at 865,303––were up 8 percent compared to March’s 798,180 and off 2 percent annually. This March to April increase was up in a major way compared an 11 percent decline a year ago, with 2014 and 2013 seeing 10 percent and 20 percent gains, respectively.

On a year-to-date basis, shipments were essentially flat annually, down 0.23 percent to 3,453,291.

Panjiva explained in a blog posting that over the last five years this timeframe has shown consistent annual growth, with few periods in which the year-to-date shipment numbers were down annually.

But with March’s numbers down significantly and followed by this 2 percent decline, the firm said its declining optimism in global trade activity is playing out. Looking ahead to May’s numbers, Panjiva said that May usually shows a small increase over April and expects marginal growth, although April to May in 2015 was up 7 percent.

Annelise McCarthy, head of Panjiva’s Customer Success team explained that the year to date numbers were basically the inverse of the 0.27 year-to-date growth through March.

“There has been a bot of volatility in April performance in some respects in recent years,” she said. “8 percent growth in April after a 12 percent decline in March shows a bit of an adjustment that happened in April,” she explained. “This also may explain some of the higher growth there.”

As for how May’s numbers will look, she said in past years May has seen slight growth or flat growth, adding that it is reasonable based on past years to expect something similar to that this year.