gokeefe wrote:Chemicals and fertilizer getting stronger is a really interesting shift as well. Chemicals should be weaker (assuming they're for paper) if paper loads are truly down.
There is no correlation to inbound chemicals (if for paper) loads to outbound product from the same mill from the RR perspective (from the mill side, inputs = outputs so obv that correlates). For example, more outbound paper loads could have be leaving Saint John via CN or truck while more chemicals could be inbound via CMQ. A lot more to it than that too, such as who is picking routings (usually shipper, in the chemical case not the mill), pricing strategy of RRs for commodities, origin and destination pairs, where the paper loads are going vs where the chemicals come from....
Check out the investor transcript under the questions if you want some more interesting information (see questions from investors).