sirius.
Week 4216 October 2026

Where Freight Cost Pressure Is Building

Fuel, shipping capacity, surcharges and currency move in the market months before they reach an invoice. sirius measures that pressure every week, from Friday's market data, across the ten corridors most of the world's freight moves through, and tells you what to do about it.

Simulation · Strait of Hormuz disruption

Close one strait and the cost of it arrives somewhere that has never shipped through it.

Ports affected
--
Countries reached
--

Published weekly by

10Trade lanes
94Weeks on record
Start here

What Cost Pressure Means

Only part of a freight bill moves with the market. The rest is a rate you agreed months ago. sirius tracks the part that moves, and how long it takes to arrive.

  • Fuel
  • Shipping capacity
  • Surcharges
  • Currency
  1. Step one · the market

    Something moves

    Fuel jumps, a chokepoint closes, carriers pull capacity, a currency slides. It happens in public, and it happens first.

  2. Step two · the wait

    30 to 90 days

    Nothing changes on your bill yet. How long you wait depends on how you buy: spot in about thirty days, an annual contract in ninety.

  3. Step three · the invoice

    It lands

    By the time it shows up, the market event is two to three months old and the budget conversation has already happened.

What a reading is not

A multiplier on your whole bill

A reading of 134 does not mean your freight bill is up 34 percent. Your base rate is contractually fixed. Only the variable part moves, and depending on how the freight travels that is between 25 and 70 percent of the bill.

What a reading is

An early warning on the part that moves

January 2026 sits at 100. A lane at 208 means the inputs to that corridor have roughly doubled since then. It tells you what is coming, and roughly when.

Four Things Move a Freight Bill

Every reading is built from the same four pressures, measured separately so a lane can say which one is carrying it. Fuel and capacity behave differently from surcharges and currency, and a carrier conversation goes differently depending on which is moving.

What the index is made ofBaseline 100
164
316
120
99
fuelcapacitysurchargescurrency

01Week 42The readings from this week

Ten Lanes, Once a Week

Two lanes rose this week. Eight were flat. January 2026 = 100.

RisingEasing
  • Middle East → Far EastOcean
    340.5−0.03%Flat

    Last week 340.6Carried by surchargesOn the bill 62% in 1 month, 86% by 2, 98% by 3

  • Far East → Middle East / AfricaOcean
    309.2−0.77%Flat

    Last week 311.6Carried by capacityOn the bill 62% in 1 month, 85% by 2, 98% by 3

  • North America → Far EastOcean
    256.5+0.63%Flat

    Last week 254.9Carried by capacityOn the bill 46% in 1 month, 78% by 2, 94% by 3

  • Intra-AsiaOcean
    230.0−0.04%Flat

    Last week 230.1Carried by capacityOn the bill 40% in 1 month, 74% by 2, 93% by 3

  • Europe → Far EastOcean
    228.3+1.65%Building

    Last week 224.6Carried by capacityOn the bill 46% in 1 month, 78% by 2, 94% by 3

  • Far East → North AmericaOcean
    217.2+0.70%Flat

    Last week 215.7Carried by capacityOn the bill 44% in 1 month, 76% by 2, 94% by 3

  • Europe ↔ North AmericaOcean
    202.9+4.80%Building

    Last week 193.6Carried by capacityOn the bill 44% in 1 month, 76% by 2, 94% by 3

  • Far East → EuropeOcean
    198.8−0.65%Flat

    Last week 200.1Carried by capacityOn the bill 44% in 1 month, 76% by 2, 94% by 3

  • North America domesticRoad
    165.6−0.30%Flat

    Last week 166.1Carried by fuelOn the bill 70% in 1 month, 90% by 2, 100% by 3

  • Europe domesticRoad
    118.9−0.83%Flat

    Last week 119.9Carried by fuelOn the bill 70% in 1 month, 90% by 2, 100% by 3

What Changed This Week

Week 42 · 16 October 2026

Read off the ten readings above, and rewritten every week from Friday's market data. Nothing here is written in advance.

  • Under most pressure

    Middle East → Far East is the heaviest lane on the board at 340.5, and surcharges is what is carrying it.

  • Moved most this week

    Europe ↔ North America rose 4.8 percent against last week, the largest move on the board.

  • Already on its way

    On the heaviest lane, 62 percent of this pressure has reached spot rates, 86 percent short term contracts and 98 percent annual ones. The rest is still in transit to your invoice.

02Week 42The report for this week

The Brief Your Team Acts On

The board above is what the market did this week. The report is what to do about it: where costs are heading over the next four weeks, which lanes are worth moving on, and the same week rewritten for the job of the person reading it.

Inside the sirius report

  1. The situation briefWhat moved this week across the ten lanes, what caused it, and what it is likely to do next.
  2. This week's actionsThe lanes worth moving on, what to do about each, and the date by which doing it stops helping.
  3. The 4-week forecast rangeWhere cost pressure is heading on each lane, one to four weeks ahead, shown as an 80% range.
  4. The executive lensesThe same week rewritten for finance, procurement, operations, supply chain and the board.
  5. The analyst annexThe decomposed signals behind every figure, and the source behind every signal.
Get the report

One email address. A new reading every week, in your inbox by Monday morning, Singapore time.

Written for the question each role arrives with

Transport
What do I action this week, and on which lanes?
Procurement
What rate windows are open, and what can I lock now?
Finance
What is the P&L exposure, and the accrual gap this quarter?
Operations
What is the delivery risk, and the lead time impact?
Supply chain
Where is the resilience exposure, and which chokepoints carry it?
CEO and board
What is the risk level, and what has to be disclosed?
Analyst
Give me the decomposed signals, so I can model them myself.
Every week

Get It Every Week

The readings above are public and stay public. What an email address buys is delivery: a new reading every week, taken from Friday's market data, in your inbox by Monday morning, Singapore time, with the brief and what changed.

You will receive the weekly sirius reading and the TetriXX AI newsletter. Unsubscribe at any time. See our Privacy Policy.

Want this on your own lanes and transport spend? Talk to us.

How to use it

From Your Lane to Your Next Negotiation

  1. 01

    Find your corridor

    Match the freight you move to one of the ten lanes. Take the reading and the weekly change.

  2. 02

    Look four weeks ahead

    The report gives each lane a 4-week forecast range: where pressure is likely to sit, one to four weeks out.

    The reading
  3. 03

    See when it lands

    Spot rates in about 30 days, a 6 to 12 month contract in 60, an annual contract in 90.

    When it lands
  4. 04

    Take it to the table

    Lock, hold, switch mode or wait. The reading is what the market supports, in writing.

    Past crises
What it detects

The Asymmetry of a Crisis

Freight costs go up faster than they come down, and they reach your invoice long after the market has moved. Those two facts are why a weekly reading is worth having at all.

Up fast, down slow

A shock takes weeks to arrive and months to clear. The buyer who locks on the way up pays for the whole descent.

When it reaches your invoice

How you buy decides when you feel it. The same market week lands on three different invoices, weeks apart.

Together

How sirius and freya Work Together

sirius.
freya.

sirius is what the market is doing. freya knows what you actually pay. Together, they tell you what your next invoice will cost.

Read the Method

Every number on this page is built from a published method. These are the papers behind it, in reading order.

The index, in one sentence

sirius is TetriXX AI's weekly freight cost pressure index: 300+ market signals across 10 global trade lanes, combined into one reading per lane across fuel, capacity, surcharges and currency, with a new reading every week taken from Friday's market data.

Earlier material calls the same index the freya Cost Pressure Index (FCPI).

Start hereHow sirius measures freight cost pressureThe sirius Supply Chain Intelligence tracks where costs are building across global trade lanes, before they reach your invoice. This page explains what we measure, why, and from which sources.8 min read

Further Reading

Posts from the TetriXX AI blog that put the index to work.
#34: Transport and Logistics Spend Management with AI

October 5, 2026 · Emilie Annweiler · 5 min read

#34: Transport and Logistics Spend Management with AI

Transport and logistics spend management with AI: why freight spend resists control, what a verified line-level record changes, seeing cost pressure before the invoice, and cost and carbon together.

#31: Building a Freight Cost Outlook for 2026

September 14, 2026 · Arnaud Rastoul · 10 min read

#31: Building a Freight Cost Outlook for 2026

A freight cost outlook is not a forecast. It is a structured view of the pressure signals that will drive your freight costs over the next 1 to 12 months. Here is how to build one that holds up in a board review.

#30: Supply Chain Cost Intelligence, and What to Look For

September 14, 2026 · Arnaud Rastoul · 8 min read

#30: Supply Chain Cost Intelligence, and What to Look For

Supply chain cost intelligence is the practice of monitoring freight cost pressure signals before they reach your invoices. This guide explains what it is, how it differs from freight market data, and what questions to ask when evaluating tools.