The Load Letter — May 26, 2026

What this episode covers

Welcome back from the long weekend — U.S. strikes on Iran sent Brent crude up 4% overnight and diesel at $3.72 is already yesterday's number. Today's briefing covers why dry van rates are firming ahead of volume in a way that historically means carriers are getting selective before shippers are ready to admit the market shifted, why flatbed at $2.87 a mile may not be the ceiling if Permian Basin rig counts keep climbing, and what Walmart's new inbound consolidation program means for brokers running supplier-facing freight. We also get into the resilience-first inventory shift becoming operational across shipper supply chains — and why that's a better environment for brokers selling reliability than brokers selling cheap rates — plus the Supreme Court declining to hear Florida's challenge to immigrant CDL programs, keeping a segment of the driver pipeline intact. The early tightening signals are showing up in the data before the volume confirms it. The brokers who act on that now won't be scrambling when it does.

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