Welcome to Highball Helper Blog

As this is my first post for the “Helper”, I thought it would be a good idea to outline the purpose of these posts. The main reason is to educate individuals on all sorts of subjects that we all encounter throughout our lives. While the chief focus will be on retirement strategies for Railroad workers, I also will be writing on whole host of topics. This could span the gamut from industry trends to reducing monthly budgets with helpful cost savings tips. I hope you find these posts insightful and beneficial.

Let’s jump right into it with a high level overview on the state of the railroad industry. These are very good times for railroads. Taking a look at Class 1 railroads and the publicly traded companies are up over 41% in the last twelve months with an YTD over 18%. A very impressive run to say the least especially for a group of companies in the usually underperforming industrial sector. Some of the companies to highlight this year are CSX and Norfolk Southern that are up 34% and 20% respectively YTD. Most Wall Street analysts have out-perform ratings on the stocks meaning they are expecting continued great stock price performance by these companies. It is important to note however that following analysts should come with trepidation and caution. In my many years of experience, they are consistently late getting to the party and always the last to leave the party.

Let’s now turn our attention to the actual business of railroading and see how it has performed recently. Railroads in the United States originated 1,338,037 carloads in October, up 1% from October 2017, and 1,443,914 containers and trailers, up 4.2%. Combined U.S. carload and intermodal originations in October were 2,781,951 units, up 2.6% from the same month a year ago. Thirteen of the 20 carload commodity categories tracked by the AAR saw on-year gains, including major segments petroleum, 28.4%, and primary metal products, 9.8%. Coal shipments edged up 1.6%. Declining were coke, 9.9%; crushed stone, sand and gravel, 9.6%, and grain, 4.8%. “U.S. rail traffic in October was mixed. On the negative side, changing market conditions for frac sand caused lower rail carloads of crushed stone, sand, and gravel, while uncertainties in export markets helped keep grain carloads down,” said AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray. “On the plus side, coal carloads in October rose for the first time in five months and intermodal enjoyed its second-best month ever. All in all, we expect most rail traffic categories to continue to benefit from what we hope will be continued solid economic growth.”