The Dow may have risen in anticipation of a recovery, but rail car loadings, usually a reliable indicator of economic activity, tell a different story. Jack McHugh, writing at The Big Picture, examines a 24 page Credit Suisse report on rail car loadings and summarizes:"Bottom Line: Last week proved no different than the last 4: railroad carloads were down more than 20%. Week 17 saw a year-over-year volume shortfall of 21.6% - which is slightly worse than the 20.4% drop in Week 16. The weakness is broad based - whether it be industrial, bulk or consumer related - every segment has shown precipitous declines in each passing week. Worse, we are one-third of the way through the second quarter and volumes are well below even the substantial declines seen in the first quarter (recall that 1Q09 industry carloads were down more than 16% year-over-year). The railroad carload data are telling a very different story about the economy than one might surmise by looking at the S&P 500. Our...(Read Full Post)