Will SONAR's OTRI.USA exceed 20% at any point in 2026?

Resolves YES if the FreightWaves SONAR Outbound Tender Reject Index (OTRI) daily reading exceeds 20.00 on any single day between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2026. Resolves NO if OTRI remains at or below 20.00 for every day of 2026. Source: FreightWaves SONAR OTRI ticker. In the event of a SONAR methodology change or data interruption, the Rig Load editorial team will designate the primary reference at resolution.

The FreightWaves SONAR Outbound Tender Reject Index sits near 14% as of early April 2026, a reading that reflects modestly tightening capacity but stops well short of crisis territory. The 20% threshold marks genuine capacity emergencies: OTRI pushed above 25% during the 2018 capacity crunch, spiked into the high 20s during the 2020 COVID reopening, and briefly touched 20% after the late 2024 hurricane season. Getting back there in 2026 would require some combination of accelerating carrier exits, the non-domiciled CDL purge working through the driver pool, a demand surge, or a supply shock on par with a major storm or labor stoppage. Craig Fuller has called this "the Great Capacity Purge" and predicted major carrier bankruptcies are coming. Whether that tightens the market enough to push OTRI above 20% is exactly the kind of binary forecasters should be pricing.