Supply Chain Crisis

Slowly but surely, the supply chain bottlenecks that have plagued the global economy for over a year appear to be easing—or at least have been circumvented.

The country’s largest retailers all said in unison this week that supply chain snags won’t play the role of the Grinch this holiday shopping season.

• The CEO of TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx and HomeGoods, declared, “We are in an excellent inventory position” ahead of the holidays.

• Target’s inventory surged 17.6% last quarter. It said its investments in inventory and staffing mean “we are going to be there” when you walk in to buy that TV.

And remember the global chip shortage that was crippling the auto industry? That could be past its peak.

• GM said that the week of Nov. 1 was the first time since February that none of its North American assembly plants were offline due to a lack of chips.

• Toyota’s production lines in Japan will return to normal operations in December for the first time in seven months.

Finally, let’s turn to shipping

If we had to pick one visual that best represents the supply chain crisis, it would be the ~80 cargo ships waiting to unload their containers at LA ports. But that traffic jam, too, seems to be transitioning from “bumper-to-bumper” to “slow crawl.”

• The number of import containers at the Port of Los Angeles has dropped by 25% since last month, thanks in part to a new fee on loitering containers.

Meanwhile, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI), a measure of global shipping rates and an inflation indicator, has plummeted 50% since peaking Oct. 7, another good sign for consumers.

Looking ahead...with Covid sticking around and labor shortages spanning the globe, bottlenecks could be annoyingly persistent. But the nightmare scenario of empty store shelves on Dec. 20 likely won’t materialize.—NF

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2021/11/17/supply-chain-crisis-shows-signs-of-gradually-easing