AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report for Friday, 4/20/18

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $3.587; Month Ago: $3.581; Year Ago: $4.440. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $3.873; Month Ago: $3.897; Year Ago: $5.476.

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 0.5% in August after falling 1.1% in July. In August, the index equaled 110.3 (2015=100) compared with 109.8 in July. “August’s monthly gain, while small, was the first since March,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “It is important to remember that ATA’s tonnage data is dominated by for-hire contract freight, with a very limited amount of spot market freight. I continue to believe that tonnage has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels for two main reasons - broader supply chain issues, like semiconductor shortages, as well as industry specific difficulties, including the driver shortage and lack of equipment. “Despite some supply chain issues, demand remains strong for trucking services generally. Truckload carriers are operating fewer trucks than a year earlier, which makes it difficult to increase freight volumes significantly,” he said.

There's something terribly wrong with the buyer-and-seller relationship in the B2B world. Sixty-five percent of B2B buyers rank salespeople as “average” or “poor”, according to a new study by Discover.org and sales linguist Steve W. Martin. As the study's blog post notes, there's already a lot of distrust and skepticism associated with salespeople — in-depth RFPs and product demos are evidence of that. However, the study shows that the 35% of respondents who held “good” or “excellent” views were willing to take more risks, like adopt a new product or experiment with a new trend.