The stock market is dropping again — here's what to do with your money right now

For the average person investing for retirement, daily market moves don't matter much. The stock market can be a fickle friend. On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average — an index that tracks the stock prices of 30 major US companies, such as Apple, McDonald's, and Walmart — was moving lower. The S&P 500 — which tracks 500 of the largest US companies, including Amazon, TripAdvisor, and Verizon — was also in the red on Thursday.

Cummins Offers Real-Time Filtration Monitoring

FleetguardFit is a real-time filtration monitoring system offering full visibility to filter and oil life. Screenshot via Cummins Filtration

Cummins Filtration has announced FleetguardFit, a real-time filtration monitoring system that provides customers full visibility to filter and oil life through the use of intelligent sensing and advanced data analytics.

This provides customers and fleets the ability to proactively detect problems allowing them to avoid downtime, reduce repair and maintenance costs, and potentially improve total cost of ownership.

FleetguardFit has been installed on various equipment applications in industries such as mining, rail, truck, bus, and power-generation across the globe. FleetguardFit uses sensors, a control module, and existing telematics services to collect and communicate filter and oil life information in real time.

A subscription portal and a mobile app are also available for equipment condition data reports that are actively monitored for you. The ability to completely monitor filter performance in real time allows equipment owners, maintenance personnel, and users to tailor service intervals based on true equipment usage and remaining oil and filter life, according to Cummins.

“FleetguardFit allows customers to precisely understand the condition of filters and oil based on real-world usage, which is a significant improvement over the current and conventional maintenance schedules that are based only on typical duty cycles,” said Amy Davis, general manager, Cummins Filtration. “By knowing exactly what is occurring, customers can use the equipment more efficiently, reduce maintenance costs and ultimately enhance their bottom line.”

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Cooper Tires to Open Mississippi Distribution Center

Cooper plans to use the 1 million square-foot warehouse in Byhalia, Miss. for distribution when construction is completed later in 2018. Image: Cooper Tires

Cooper Tire & Rubber announced that it will expand its product distribution network in the U.S. by opening a 1 million square-foot warehouse in Byhalia, Miss.

Cooper will lease the facility, which is currently under construction and is slated to open in the fall of 2018. The project is expected to bring 100 new jobs for the region and the site will be the largest distribution center for the tire manufacturer in the country.

The facility is centrally located among Cooper's three U.S. tire manufacturing plants in Findlay, Ohio, Texarkana, Ark., and Tupelo, Miss. It will allow cooper to consolidate and distribute products efficiently to customers as well as supply its regional distribution centers, according to the company. The facility will also have the capacity to expand to an additional 400,000 square feet as needed.

“This new facility will enhance our logistics infrastructure, which supports our efforts to offer exceptional service to our customers by helping us get tires to them when and where they want them,” said Bob Sager, Cooper's director of Supply Chain. “This facility is a complement to our current U.S. distribution network that includes six regional distribution centers and three plant manufacturing warehouses, adding to our capability to be flexible and responsive.”

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Dow plunges more than 1,000 points, enters a correction

The stock market has plunged into a correction, defined as a 10% drop from its most recent high. On Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 1,000 points in a sell-off that accelerated near the end of the trading session. Track the Dow at Markets Insider.

C.R. England Launches Charitable Effort to Fight Childhood Hunger

The One initiative, is a charitable effort to provide 1 million meals annually to hungry children. Photo via One initiative

C.R. England and England Logistics have announced the launch of the One initiative, a charitable effort to provide 1 million meals annually to hungry children.

To move toward this goal, they will donate proceeds from business transactions to youth meal programs at local food banks around the nation. Both companies have implemented a donation structure to convert profits earned from any business service at either company into proceeds for meals.

The One initiative's efforts will be tied to food banks where employees are located to facilitate a community outreach. The One initiative aims to invite company employees and drivers, as well as customers, carriers, and freight agents to join in the fight against childhood hunger.

"Reducing the impact of childhood hunger is what we hope to accomplish through the One initiative," said Josh England, president of C.R. England. "We are passionate about this cause and want to do our part in helping to solve this problem in our communities."

A corporate donation will be triggered each time a driver delivers a truckload of freight. At the time of delivery, each driver will designate which of the 19 food banks to direct a donation. Additionally, throughout the year, both C.R. England and England Logistics locations will hold fundraisers with all of the money raised being donated to local food banks.

Finally, employees and drivers are encouraged to provide volunteer service hours at local food banks.

Participating food banks include Utah Food Bank, Atlanta Community Food Bank, Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, Community Food Bank (Fresno, CA), Feeding America Riverside/San Bernardino, Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, Food Bank of the Rockies, Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, Gleaners Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan, Greater Chicago Food ...Read the rest of this story

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ELD Mandate: Exemptions, Uneven Enforcement Obscure Impact

Citations have increased for violations related to AOBRDs during ELD transition. Graph courtesy FTR.

It's impossible to gauge the full impact of the electronic logging device mandate yet, between temporary exemptions and a phased-in enforcement period, and in fact we may not know the true effect on the industry until rates soften significantly, according to FTR analysts.

The ELD mandate went into effect Dec. 18 and requires most interstate commercial drivers to use devices meeting Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration specifications to track their hours of service and ensure they're not exceeding federal limits.

How many exemptions does it take to gut a rule?

In the forecasting firm's monthly State of Freight webinar, Avery Vise, vice president of trucking research, summarized the exemptions currently in place, including a technical reprieve for UPS and one for the Motion Picture Association of America, and noted the many exemption applications that are still pending, from agriculture retailers to power and communication contractors.

The big question, he noted, is the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association's petition to exempt “small business” trucking operations of less than $27.5 million in annual revenue, which would be in fact the majority, some 95% or more, of trucking companies, Vise said.

While OOIDA's petition includes a couple of qualifiers, in reality those would not reduce the number of fleet exempted by very many, Vise said. One was that to be exempt, carriers could not have an unsatisfactory safety rating. Vise noted that if you have an unsatisfactory safety rating and aren't implementing a plan to correct it, “you're out of business.”

The other qualification in the OOIDA petition was that exempt carriers would have to be able to document a proven history of safety performance with no at-fault crashes. Vise said even putting aside the fact that there's no concrete definition of what constitutes an ...Read the rest of this story