Monthly Supply Chain Pulse - 33

📰 Supply Chain Pulse | Monthly Edition – August 6, 2026

Your Go-To Source for Supply Chain Insights, Trends, and Actionable Advice

August opens with manufacturing at a four-year high, factories hiring for the first time in nearly three years, and freight costs finally cooling. But the tariff that expired last month has already been replaced, and the strait that carries a fifth of the world's oil just shut down again. Here's your breakdown.

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📊 Key Metrics

Staying competitive means keeping an eye on the data that matters most. Here are six supply chain metrics we monitor and update each month.

🛳️ Drewry World Container Index (WCI)

The Shanghai to New York rate came in at $7,578 per 40ft container this month, down about 4% from July's peak of $7,902 and the first real pullback since spring. Demand has cooled now that the new U.S. tariffs are in effect and the summer shipping rush has passed. But don't mistake this dip for a collapse. Carriers are canceling sailings to keep capacity tight, and new fuel surcharges tied to Middle East tensions take effect in August. You are still paying roughly double what this route cost in early May. If you held off on shipments during the July spike, this is your window to move.

🚚 DAT Truckload Freight Rate Index

Van spot rates settled at $3.00 per mile this month, down six cents from July and the second straight monthly decline, as summer freight demand softened and more trucks returned to the market. But the year-over-year picture tells the real story. Rates are still up roughly 40% from this time last year, and DAT's own forecast calls for another 12% increase in spot rates over the next twelve months. There's also a quieter shift happening beneath the surface. Capacity is leaving the market faster than freight is, with truck postings down nearly 28% year over year, which means any bump in demand this fall could tighten things quickly.

🛢 Commodity Research Bureau (CRB) Index

The CRB index measures a basket of 19 commodities including energy, agriculture, and metals. It’s widely considered a leading indicator of inflation, economic health, and overall cost trends for goods across the market. An increase tends to signify an increase in economic activity while a decrease tends to signify a slowdown in economic activity.

The CRB Index rose to 373.44 this month, up 2.9% from July and ending a two-month slide. The rebound was uneven. Oil and metals actually fell slightly, but European natural gas jumped 19% as the continent stocks up ahead of winter, and that was enough to pull the whole index higher. The bigger message for manufacturers is that the summer price relief appears to be over. The index remains well above where it started the year, and the World Bank still expects commodity prices to finish 2026 up 16%. If you pushed back on supplier price increases during the June and July dip, hold that ground. Your suppliers are watching this same rebound and looking for a reason to restart the conversation.

🇺🇸 🏭 Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index

To create this index, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia surveys around 250 manufacturers, asking about factors like employment, working hours, new and unfilled orders, shipments, inventory levels, delivery times, prices, costs, and business forecasts for the next six months. An index level above zero signifies improving conditions, while a level below zero indicates worsening conditions. Read more here.

The index exploded to 41.4 in July, a 31-point jump from June and its highest reading in nearly five years, tripling what forecasters expected. This was not a fluke driven by one strong component. New orders climbed to 37.0, shipments jumped to 33.7, and employment stayed positive for a second straight month, meaning demand, output, and hiring all moved together. More than half of the manufacturers surveyed reported improved activity. There is one welcome shift on pricing this month too. Prices received rose while prices paid held steady, which means regional manufacturers are finally clawing back some of the margin they lost earlier this year. The catch is in the forward-looking numbers, where expectations for the next six months cooled noticeably even as current activity boomed. In plain terms, business is very good right now, but manufacturers are less sure it lasts into 2027.

🧾 Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)

The PMI is an economic indicator derived from monthly surveys of private sector companies, measuring the performance of the manufacturing and services sectors. It covers metrics such as new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries, and employment. A PMI above 50 indicates expansion, while below 50 suggests contraction.

The July PMI jumped to 55.6%, up 2.3 points from June and the highest reading in over four years, marking the seventh straight month of manufacturing growth. The headline of this report is hiring. The Employment Index broke into growth territory for the first time in 33 months, ending nearly three years of manufacturers cutting or holding headcount, with 60% of companies now reporting they are hiring. Production also surged to its highest level since 2021, backlogs are building, and customer inventories remain deeply depleted, which means the orders pipeline should stay full through the fall. The one stubborn spot is cost. The Prices Index eased for a third straight month to 71.1, but any reading above 70 still means most manufacturers are paying more for materials each month. The message here is that the recovery is no longer tentative. When manufacturers start hiring after 33 months of holding back, they are signaling real confidence in demand.

📈 🌎 GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index

The GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index, produced by S&P Global and GEP, is a leading indicator derived from monthly surveys of approximately 27,000 businesses across 40+ countries, tracking demand conditions, shortages, transportation costs, inventories, and backlogs. A reading above zero signals that supply chain capacity is being stretched and volatility is increasing; a reading below zero indicates underutilized capacity and lower volatility.

The June GEP Index eased to 1.37 from May's 1.55, the second straight monthly decline, but supply chains remain firmly stretched. Safety stockpiling rose again to its highest level since January 2023, and manufacturer backlogs caused by shortages of critical inputs hit their worst level since late 2022. As GEP's analysts put it, businesses simply do not trust the trading environment to stay stable, so they keep buying ahead even as oil prices and freight costs come down. North America and Asia are still purchasing aggressively, meaning U.S. buyers remain in a crowded line for the same supplier capacity. Expect bottlenecks to persist through the third quarter. If a critical component has been hard to get, do not assume calmer freight markets mean your lead times are about to improve. The backlog math says otherwise.

🌍 Global Hot Topic: The Hormuz Ceasefire Collapsed, and the Recovery Just Reset to Zero(Click To Read Article)

For a few hopeful weeks in June, it looked like the worst supply chain disruption of 2026 was finally ending. After the U.S. and Iran signed a preliminary agreement on June 17, oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz climbed back to roughly half of pre-war levels, freight risk premiums began easing, and markets started pricing in a return to normal. That progress is now gone. Fighting resumed in early July after Iran attacked ships transiting a route it had not authorized, the U.S. reimposed its naval blockade, and commercial crossings collapsed from 35 vessels a day to as few as 14 before pausing almost entirely. The U.S. Navy has since redirected 44 commercial vessels under the renewed blockade. Negotiations are continuing through Oman and Washington has signaled optimism about reaching a new deal, but the obstacles to a real recovery keep piling up. Sea mines still litter the waterway, Iran is demanding transit fees and control over which routes ships can use, port and energy infrastructure across the region has taken billions in damage, and shipping insurers remain deeply wary of returning. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil normally moves through this 21-mile-wide waterway, and it has now been disrupted for over five months.

For manufacturers, this is the single thread that ties together nearly every number in this newsletter. The fuel surcharges on your ocean freight, the diesel costs baked into your truckload rates, the energy-driven swings in the commodity index, and the stockpiling behavior driving global shortages all trace back to this one waterway. The practical guidance has not changed, but it has become more urgent. Build energy volatility into your pricing rather than treating each spike as a surprise, keep extra lead time on anything that moves by ocean, and treat any future ceasefire headline with healthy skepticism until the data shows ships actually moving. The market believed the last one, and it cost the businesses that planned around it.

🇺🇸 US Hot Topic: The Old Tariff Died on July 24. The New One Started the Same Day. (Click To Read Article)

Last month we told you the 10% surcharge on nearly all imports would expire on July 24 and warned that replacements were being prepared. That is exactly how it played out. At 12:01 a.m. on July 24, the moment the old Section 122 tariff lapsed, new tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act took effect, imposing duties of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners that together account for over 99% of everything the U.S. imports. The official justification is that these countries failed to enforce prohibitions on goods made with forced labor, but the practical effect is that the global tariff program was rebuilt on a new legal foundation without missing a single day of collection. There are two important differences, and neither favors importers. First, the old tariff had a built-in 150-day expiration. The new one has no time limit and no rate ceiling, meaning it stays until the administration decides otherwise and can be raised at any point. Second, this is not the end of the buildout. A separate investigation into excess manufacturing capacity across 16 economies is still underway and could add another layer of tariffs on automotive, electronics, machinery, and metals later this year, and a new 50% tariff on select Canadian goods takes effect August 19, applying even to products that qualify under USMCA.

So what does this mean for you? If you were hoping the July 24 expiration would lower your landed costs, check your August invoices closely, because for most products the math barely changed, and for goods from countries hit with the 12.5% rate, it got slightly worse. The window for in-transit exemptions has already closed. The real lesson of the past six months is that tariff policy in this environment is not a storm to wait out. It is a permanent feature of the landscape that requires active management. Every importer should now know their exposure by component and by country, and should have at least one sourcing alternative mapped for their highest-spend parts. If you don't have that picture of your own supply chain yet, that is exactly the kind of work we do at Ena Source, and a conversation costs nothing.

📈 Ena Monthly Stock Pick

$USMV — This ETF is designed for exactly the kind of environment we keep describing in this newsletter, where the economy is growing but the headlines refuse to calm down. The fund holds about 170 large U.S. companies selected to produce the lowest overall portfolio swings, giving it a beta of just 0.55, meaning it historically moves roughly half as much as the S&P 500. What makes it a smarter pick than a pure defensive fund is the mix. You get steady compounders like Waste Management and Berkshire Hathaway alongside measured positions in Nvidia and Microsoft, so you are protected on the downside without sitting out the market's biggest growth stories. Add a low 0.15% expense ratio and a track record of losing far less during downturns, and USMV is a sensible home for money that wants to stay invested without riding every headline up and down.

• As always, it’s not about timing the market, it’s about time in the market

• Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or a recommendation for any investment. The content is for information purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

🚀 Your Supply Chain, Your Competitive Edge

Most manufacturers we talk to are leaving money on the table not because they aren't smart, but because sourcing is time-consuming, relationships get comfortable, and there's always something more urgent to deal with. That's exactly where we come in. Ena Source works as an embedded extension of your team, finding better suppliers, negotiating better prices, and building the kind of supply chain that stops being a problem and starts being an advantage. We work with small and mid-size manufacturers across the Mid-Atlantic, and our first conversation is always free.

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