News
October is expected to be the second-busiest month of the year for the U.S. 's major retail container ports as merchants stock up for the holiday shopping season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
Ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 1.71 million TEUs in August, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available. That was up 5 percent from July and up 1.7 percent from August 2015, and has been the busiest month of the year so far.
Volume dipped in September to an estimated 1.64 million TEUs but was still up 0.9 percent from last year. October is forecast at 1.65 million TEU s, up 6 percent from last year; November at 1.54 million TEU s, up 3.9 percent, and December at 1.48 million TEU s, up 3.4 percent.
The numbers come as NRF is forecasting HYPERLINK "https://nrf.com/media/press-releases/national-retail-federation-forecasts-holiday-sales-increase-36" $655.8 billion in holiday sales, a 3.6 percent increase over last year.
January 2017 is forecast at 1.53 million TEUs, up 2.7 percent from January 2016, and February is forecast at 1.47 million TEUs, down 4.4 percent from last year.
