Another Round of Volatility

Happy Friday. Rates are still elevated, tender rejections are running well above last year, and the Fourth of July hasn't even hit yet. We're breaking down Arrive's June 2026 Freight Market Update in today's feature.

Plus:

• Frasso Trucking's Guilty Plea

• Iran Hits a Ship, Hormuz Wobbles

• FedEx Freight Is Done Playing Defense

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Question of the Day:

Reefer tender rejections peaked at roughly _____% following Roadcheck Week. (Answer in feature)

TOP LANE MOVERS POWERED BY TRIUMPH

🍳 What's Cookin' In Freight

👨‍👩‍👧 A Trucking Company Just Pleaded Guilty to Hiding Mob Money. Frasso Trucking, a New Jersey carrier, pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy for anti-money laundering profiteering after being used by its owners to conceal illegal gambling proceeds tied to the Lucchese crime family. The case is part of a two-year investigation that identified $4.79 million in suspected criminal proceeds funneled through illegal poker clubs, an online sportsbook, and shell companies — with 42 people indicted since April 2025. As of June 23, Frasso Trucking was still listed as an active carrier on FMCSA's SAFER website. Yep, a carrier actively moving freight while simultaneously pleading guilty to organized crime money laundering.

🚢 Iran Just Shot at a Ship. The Ceasefire Is One Week Old. An Iranian drone struck the Evergreen vessel Ever Lovely in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday — the first reported attack since the US-Iran ceasefire — sending oil prices higher and prompting the UN to pause ship evacuations. Windward AI tracked 62 vessels transiting on June 24, but only 21 inbound, as tanker flows into the region remained heavily restricted. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister warned at the UN that safe passage "cannot be guaranteed" under any arrangement that bypasses Iran and threatened to suspend the designated parallel route if shippers use non-Tehran-approved corridors. Oil inventories sitting in Gulf vessels dropped from 160 million barrels to 110 million barrels since early June, and until inbound tanker flows normalize, the benchmark price and the surcharge calculations attached to it stay volatile.

📦 FedEx Freight as Standalone Company is Already Hunting. FedEx Freight just reported its first earnings as a standalone public company after splitting from FedEx Corp. earlier this month, and CEO John Smith didn't spend much time looking backward. The company built out a dedicated sales force targeting data center infrastructure, grocery, and healthcare; high-margin segments where it had historically underperformed. Smith called it moving from "building" to "hunting." The timing is pointed: Amazon announced LTL expansion earlier this month, sending FedEx Freight shares and other LTL peers tumbling on the news. FedEx Freight is essentially telling the market it plans to compete on specialization, not price. The LTL landscape is shifting fast; the biggest carrier in the segment is pivoting its entire sales strategy while the biggest retailer in the world is trying to eat its lunch.