Transports had a solid showing during 1Q21 earnings against a backdrop that there “wasn't much to do in the group” with weather a likely scapegoat for headline misses. Fundamentals were strong enough in most cases to offset the impact of weather and beat lowered expectations, but the stocks getting the most attention did it with core operations. Specifically, UPS moved the bar higher in U.S. Domestic margins while KNX and CHRW struggled to demonstrate the anticipated leverage. In a market that appears primed for a further pullback, we could turn more positive on UPS (leverage to our pricing power thesis), UNP (weak sentiment and slow growth) and WERN (dedicated + potential M&A). However, some patience is likely required so we recommend getting started with the summer reading list of rail M&A, autonomous trucking, XPO’s spin, and parcel pricing power. In this note we are also ramping up our monitoring of high frequency, alternative data sources to put some perspective around the debate of whether or not the freight cycle has peaked and a negative inflection is ahead. We are monitoring Chase Card data for customer spending patterns in categories that impact freight rates and have seen a continued shift to services since our first analysis in January. We've also added daily and weekly West Coast port metrics, which suggest port and terminal fluidity has improved substantially and the peak of congestion might have come earlier than prior expectations for mid-summer. At this point we believe these data sets suggest the surface freight market is closer to peak than not and expect TL rate momentum will fade in late June. Highlights of key sector FAQs and themes are listed below with more details inside the note including: summaries of top picks FDX, NSC and TFII along with why we would avoid TL after the recent weather-fueled run (page 5), scorecard of 1Q21 stock calls (page 6), most frequently asked investor questions (pages 7-15), and key sector themes (pages 16-22).