Are you really ready to bet this bull market is over before the Transports even join the party?
Most stocks bottomed back in the summer of 2022. Since then, the market’s marched higher, with new highs across the board.
Yet here we are, late in the summer of 2025, and the Dow Jones Transportation Average still hasn’t broken out above its old cycle peaks.
That leaves us with two possibilities.
Either this is one of the biggest divergences in market history, a warning flare that stocks are closer to the end than the beginning.
Or Transports are the last piece of the puzzle, and when they finally rip, it confirms we’re still early in this run.
Either way, the next move from Transports is going to matter – a lot.
Big Bases = Big Breakouts
The Dow Jones Transportation Average peaked in the fall of 2021. We’re now entering the fall of 2025, which makes this about a four-year consolidation.
One thing we know about markets: consolidations usually resolve in the direction of the prevailing trend.
And when you zoom out on the Transports, it’s clear this multi-year base is forming right in the middle of a long-term secular uptrend:
“Whenever in doubt, zoom out” is how I learned it. That’s so we can step back and acknowledge the direction of the underlying trend.
The index has had a couple of false starts and plenty of opportunities to resolve lower.
But it’s been resilient, and now it’s looking like the resolution will be higher.
The bigger the base, the more explosive the ultimate breakout tends to be.
This base is huge.
What Is a Transport?
Way back when, Charles Henry Dow created what he called the Railroad Average.
These were the companies delivering the goods, while the “Industrials” were the ones producing them.
That first index, which consisted of just 11 railroads, appeared in The Wall Street Journal in 1884.
Fast-forward to today, and the modern version, the Dow Jones Transportation Average, holds 20 stocks.
The rails are still there, but you’ll also find airlines, truckers, and logistics firms – the companies that keep the global economy moving.
The point is simple: If you want to know where the index is headed, break it down company by company. The whole is only as strong as its parts.
Take Ryder System (R), for example, a logistics and transportation leader already hitting new all-time highs:
Look at C.H. Robinson (CHRW), an integrated freight and logistics company also making new all-time highs:
And while I can show you just the very best ones, you’re going to have a hard time finding too many bad ones on this list of 20 Transports.
Look at the base in Expeditors (EXPD), another integrated freight and logistics company:
Kirby (KEX) and FedEx (FDX) are sitting on monster bases.
The rails – CSX (CSX), Norfolk-Southern (NSC), and Union Pacific (UNP) – all look like they’re coiling for breakouts.
And even the airlines, which usually get dragged through the mud at this stage, aren’t breaking down. United (UAL) and Delta (DAL) are pressing right up against new all-time highs.
That’s not what markets look like at the end of a bull run. At tops, you see breakdowns, failed rallies… exhaustion across the board.
I’m not seeing any of that here.
In fact, I’m seeing the opposite. These charts look like they’re just getting started.
So what does that mean for the bigger picture?
It means the crowd is probably wrong – again. Instead of bracing for the end, we could be setting up for a year-end ripper that rolls right into 2026.
I’m not betting against that.
The question is… are you?
Stay sharp,
JC Parets, CMT
Founder, TrendLabs