Freight Boom Barrels Through May, Cass Reports Data released Friday from Cass Information Systems (NASDAQ: CASS ) shows the freight industry advanced at a blistering pace during May. The Cass Freight Index logged the highest-ever growth rates in the shipments and expenditures components of the dataset''s more than 30-year history. The May report showed the shipments index jumped 35.3% higher year-over-year. While the comparisons reflect year-ago demand weakness as large parts of the nation and economy remained under lockdown, the index recorded the highest reading since May 2018. The two-year stacked comp also turned positive for the first time in the current freight cycle, up 3.3% from May 2019. Recently, many analysts have been comparing freight volumes to a similar period in 2019, which is viewed as a more typical freight market, to remove some of the COVID-related noise in the comps. The shipments index was up 7.7% compared to April, 5.9% higher sequentially on a seasonally adjusted basis. Improvements in auto production, a steady offloading of containers at the ports and inventory restocking due to strong retail sales were cited as reasons for the volume increase.