March
saw both expenditures and shipments increase from the previous
month’ s activity
.
INDEX DEFINITION
Cass Information Systems processes over $14 billion in annual freight payables. These volumes of data provide a statistically valid sampling ratio that can be used as an economic indicator of industrial shipment activity.
We have developed a monthly Volume Index of Freight Expenditures and Shipments that is based upon transportation dollars and shipments of Cass clients. The index is comprised of shippers throughout the United States who participate in the Cass Information Systems Payment Service. Over 1,200 divisions of 400 unique companies representing a broad spectrum of the SIC categories contribute data to the index. Freight expenses, for the index base, consist of participating shippers with volumes ranging from $50,000 to over $500,000,000 annually. This diversity of shippers and range of volume provides a statistically valid cross-sampling of industries in the United States.
The Index's purpose is to compare levels of shipment activity on a month to month basis.
HOW THE INDEX WORKS
The index uses January 1990 as its base month. The index is updated with monthly freight expenditures and shipment volumes from the entire Cass data base. The monthly volumes represent the month the transactions are processed by Cass, not the month the actual shipment took place. The January 1990 base point is 1.00 or 100%. The subsequent months index represents the shipping volumes of the participating shippers compared to their January 1990 volumes.
Each month' volumes are adjusted to provide an average 21 day work month. Adjustments also are made to compensate for business additions / deletions to the volume figures. These adjustments provide a smoothing effect, and a sound base for ongoing monthly comparison. The index does not equate to Cass' overall processing volumes but to the volume levels of Cass' customer base.
