Rate Volatility, AI Vetting, and Telematics Overload

0:00Juan Perez: A dark night, a quiet house, but inside danger was lurking.

0:04Malcolm Harris: Oh, we have Xfinity Shield. It's built-in Wi-Fi feature detects movement without cameras.

0:09Juan Perez: What she didn't know is that online there lurked an even bigger.

0:12Malcolm Harris: Xfinity Cyber Secure protects us from digital threats too.

0:15Juan Perez: I should have stuck to rom-coms. What if protecting your home and devices could be drama-free? Introducing Xfinity Shield. Visit Xfinity.com slash Shield to learn more. Xfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Xfinity Internet and compatible equipment required. the

0:58heavy

1:00Malcolm Harris: Ladies and gentlemen, it is almost the third Saturday in October, so you know I had to come with the preparations. I can't even get my words out. I'm so excited. It's another episode of What The Truck. I'm your host, Malcolm Harris. It is Friday, October 16th, and we have such an incredible array of guests for you all. bringing out the guy well really he's the dude all right he is none other than my brother he is the man he is the myth he is the legend he is mr michael vincent mike what is up my brother welcome it is good to see you on this election friday come on man i love it bro what's up dog What's up?

1:50Malcolm Harris: What goes down on the third Saturday of October every year? Tell me. Listen, man. You got one of two options. It's got to have something to do with those volunteers. Those volunteers out of Tennessee, all right? Are you a cigar guy at all? I used to be, man.

2:07Juan Perez: Yeah. I used to be. Not in years, but I've threatened, but my wife threatens back. Okay.

2:13Malcolm Harris: Okay. Okay.

2:13Juan Perez: That's fine. Happy wife. Happy wife.

2:16Malcolm Harris: Happy life. I get that. Amen, bro. Amen. The winner of this game always smokes a cigar after. So last night I went and picked up. Who are you playing? We're playing the University of Alabama. Oh. Tennessee's biggest rival. Yeah. It's the third Saturday in October. Come on now. Come on now. This is cakewalk. Oh, you think Alabama's taking it? No. Hell no.

2:38Juan Perez: You don't think so? Are you at home? Yeah, we're in Knoxville. No, no, no, no, no. Volunteers. What's the line? What's the line on the game? Eight and a half. Yoshi taking that. Or Yoshi. What's his name? Shohei. Shohei. Yoshi. Yoshi? We need a meme of a... Yoshi Ohtani's going to take it.

3:02Malcolm Harris: We need a meme of Yoshi from Mario Kart and a Shohei Ohtani jersey. That is too much. We don't need anything else for the rest of the day, man. That was hilarious.

3:11Juan Perez: That's it. We're out. We're out. The road ahead. We're out.

3:14Malcolm Harris: The road ahead, buddy. I mean...

3:16Juan Perez: Dude, I used to... I figured out... I used to, when I'd travel, I used to find, there was a place in Guatemala City that I could buy Cuban cigars, right? Yeah. And this is probably, people who travel around South America, Central America, probably, you know, they're like, duh. But most people didn't, and I found it interesting. You buy a box of Cuban cigars, and they will rewrap it in Nicaraguan wrappers and then present it to you at your gate when you fly out, right? Oh. So I used, yeah, I used to do that. And then in my bag, I accidentally forgot got a couple Cohibas in my bag. I didn't realize that they were there.

3:49Juan Perez: And I went through customs and the guy saw them and just put them back in there and say shit. So I would buy a box of Cubans or a couple boxes of Cubans and just leave them the empty, like the individual wrapped cigars in my luggage. When it opened, I'd see two or three and close it. They don't give a shit about two or three. They give a shit about like 15 or pallet. You know what I mean? I used to bring Cubans back all the time.

4:11Malcolm Harris: So you were a Cuban Nicaraguan mask cigar smuggler. I was a mule. I was a cigar mule. So basically, Phil Brink needs to make a story about you is what we're saying. Yeah, I guess it was air cargo fraud, according to you.

4:29Malcolm Harris: Oh, man, you are a mess. Today is going to be a fun day. I can already tell in the first four minutes. Let's get to on deck. It's Friday, bro. Let's do it. We got some wonderful folks coming up looking on deck to see who we have. It's going to be a total of three, like I mentioned. The first is going to be Mr. Juan Perez. Now, Juan, he's a senior director of trading at Monex USA. All right. So he's joining us to break down why rate hikes aren't automatically making currency stronger. He was Bloomberg's top G10 FX forecaster for Q2 in 2026. So Juan, he's not going to say he's a big deal. Juan's a big deal, ladies and gentlemen.

5:09Malcolm Harris: And he's going to explain how currency swings are quietly eating into freight and shipper margins. And then also why companies shouldn't try to predict things and what hedging actually does and what a CFO should do first. So that's Juan's conversation. And then Alex Pupichoff, he is the VP of Growth and Communication at OVN LLC. And he's joining us to talk about Verilane. It's the AI carrier qualification system OVN has built for its own fleet of more than 1 ,300 cargo vans. So it's going to read a driver's whole file. It's going to verify insurance directly with the provider instead of trusting a certificate.

5:45Malcolm Harris: And it keeps rechecking coverage after onboarding. So we're going to dig into where AI stops and where a human steps in. And then how cutting onboarding time roughly in half helps both OVN and its drivers. So that's the conversation with Alex. And then finally, Steve Schwent. He is the Vice President of Product Safety at Samba Safety. Excuse me. He's the Vice President of Product Management at Samba Safety. He's going to join us about the 2026 telematics report. All right. So there's a lot to get into with their information. Samba! Samba! They are drowning in data. All right. So he's going to break that down for us.

6:20Malcolm Harris: What? We better help him out, man. It's crazy. It is absolutely amazing. Send some of that data my way, Steve. Send it my way, bro.

6:26Juan Perez: We'll help you out. We'll bail some of that data. Does that not look like a middleweight or maybe even a heavyweight boxing card to you right there?

6:38Malcolm Harris: No, that's for sure UFC. I'm the Dana White.

6:40Juan Perez: Perez versus Pugachev. Yeah, no, for sure. Fight for the right to battle.

6:45Malcolm Harris: That's a matchup.

6:46Juan Perez: Steve the Steelman Schwint.

6:48Malcolm Harris: That's a matchup. I see, I see, I want to say that's Alex in preview and he's got a Kansas City Royals hat and looking like Bobby Witt over there, man. So I'm excited.

6:58Juan Perez: I'd like to get his take on the Cleveland Tampa Bay series. What's going to go down there?

7:03Malcolm Harris: I think that's a Casey hat. I can't see good. You know me, I'm not wearing my contacts and my glasses today. So we'll, we'll get to him in a moment, but before we get to our guests, of course, you guys know how it goes. The show would not be possible without our team at truckstop.com. That is the official sponsor of what the drug for the month of October. They are fantastic. Of course, we talk about it when it comes to carriers as as well as brokers, what they are doing for us in the space is uncanny. For more than 30 years, they've been able to provide services. Of course, for carriers, they have AVA, which is Truckstop's voice assistant.

7:35Malcolm Harris: And it's made the Truckstop Go app so much better and seamless. And then also for brokers, they have the broker assistant that you can actually see and get risk factors that help you feel capacity and spot carrier risk before it even happens. So check them out right now and get started, of course, at truckstop.com. They are the official sponsor, presenting sponsor of What the Truck. Appreciate you guys. And shout out to Kyle. Right on. As well. With that being said, in just two weeks' time, we have the biggest event of the year in freight. Yes, it is. The Future of Freight Festival. That is going to be at The Signal.

8:13Malcolm Harris: All right. For those that don't know, haven't been listening to the show, hi. This is What the Truck. I'm Malcolm. This is an event that you should come to. It is downtown. It is in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is phenomenal. It is the future of Freight Festival. It's going to be the 27th and the 28th. Tickets are on sale right now. You can visit FreightWaves.com for more information. All right. So that is going to be our bills being paid. That was a little abbreviated version because we have so much to get to. All right. So listen, listen, listen, listen. We can't.

8:45Juan Perez: Check it out, man. The weather forecast, bro, is 75 to 79 degrees and sunny. Say it one more time. Say it one more time. 75 to 79 degrees and sunny. Right on. Right on. It's going to be a beautiful weekend in the Chattanooga area.

9:07Malcolm Harris: Beautiful week.

9:08Juan Perez: Going to have some Chattanooga whiskey. If you're not there, you're just missing out.

9:13Malcolm Harris: You're missing out.

9:13Juan Perez: I'm saying. You're just missing out. Just been sipping on some Chattanooga whiskey in the evening with a little sweater on. Man. Damn.

9:22Malcolm Harris: So I want to talk to you about this because this one we talked about in the morning minute. This was yesterday. What do you want to talk about? English? Yeah. Let's talk about this.

9:34Juan Perez: We ain't come here to play no school.

9:38Malcolm Harris: You can't do that. That is crazy. That is crazy. little 12 gauge for you there bro uh the the c coalition did i say that right c i don't know that sure why not i want to say it's a c coalition there's uh seek seek there's seeks yeah there's some specific information and we got this pulled up right here you guys can check this out right now on freightwaves.com this is pulled of course courtesy of john kingston all All right. All right. With them, they had comments filed to the FMCSA and it described itself as a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to ensuring that the members of the Sikh community in America are able to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or backlash.

10:23All right.

10:25Malcolm Harris: So what has happened is that they have made comments to the FMCSA basically saying that, of course, with all the language surrounding the mandates that have been given from the FMCSA, it is potentially discrimination involved. So I will say, I talked to Zach Strickland about this. No, you're fine, brother. I talked to Zach Strickland about this. I don't think they're wrong for weighing in on, you know, hey, we just want to make sure that there's clarity surrounding what this means because we don't want discrimination. But maybe I read this wrong, and that's why I wanted to bring it to you to get your thought.

11:04Juan Perez: No, I think that's exactly their opinion. And everybody's entitled to their opinion, however ignorant they may be. I don't think they're wrong for having an opinion. I think bringing the whole discrimination is a tired play. We're all tired of that crap. Come on, man. Baloney. Put that guy's picture up against Malcolm and tell me which one you think is going to speak English. Go ahead. If you're, you know, okay, profiling. Profiling works because, you know, certain things, you don't find Christians running around tying bombs to their kids and blowing people up, okay? It's just one of those things.

11:39Juan Perez: Now, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about English proficiency. There isn't any DOT officers running around, looking in a cab, going, oh, there's a Sikh. Let's pull him over and test his English. That has never happened. Zero times. It's not happening now. They're complaining about something that isn't there. They're not complaining about English proficiency. That's what makes this such a non-thing. Why? Why are they?

12:10Malcolm Harris: mike are you still with us oh man did we lose the dude i think so it's all right we'll keep it moving we'll keep it rolling here for now um you can check this out right now on a freight waves.com for more information all right with that being said uh there is also a discussion tab that are in the uh the bottom of these articles which i found to be uh very insightful there's a comment that I want to read to you guys. It's anonymous, of course, but I'd like to know the correlation between an influx of foreign drivers, all nationalities, and the rise in insurance fraud cargo theft, ETC. It seems like a prime opportunity to plant operatives in the industry, of course, with bad intentions.

12:47Malcolm Harris: I do not think it's just a coincidence that trucking had such a growth with TPS and asylum seekers. They have brought corrupt ways to our shores, and it is time to see an end to that. So there's comments like that, and there's also other comments as well that I think definitely drive conversation. So you guys should check this out right now on FreightWaves.com. All right. So next we're going to talk earnings. All right. J.B. Hunt is officially, officially, and I hate that we lost Mike because I want to get his takes on this. But J.B. Hunt, we're in the what Frazier calls the playoffs here at FreightWaves.

13:21Malcolm Harris: All right. So earnings season is officially here. J.B. Hunt submitted earnings publicly yesterday. All right. So at the end of business yesterday. And this will be discussed in full today on Freight Waves Today. There's going to be a special edition of Freight Waves Today with Matthew Leffler as well as Craig Fuller to get into a full breakdown of earnings. So I just want to kind of highlight some upper level stuff real quick. J.B. Hunt, they reported third quarter, excuse me, revenue of$3.68 billion Thursday after the market closed. The result was ahead of a$3.59 billion consensus estimate. earnings per share were$1.82, were one higher than analysts' revised expectations.

14:01Malcolm Harris: And of course, you guys can see the entire report right now on FreightWaves.com. So again, J.B. Hunt leading the way when it comes to earnings. I will say another point before we move to our next article. So with this being said, Craig Fuller and myself, we were on Freight Waves today a couple of days ago, had a great conversation about earnings and what's to come. J.B. Hunt and their business model. Obviously, Shelly, the entire team at J.B. Hunt from a leadership perspective doing an outstanding job, but just their way of being able to just look at intermodal and then have this be a true, true function.

14:36Malcolm Harris: I mean, this is a pillar, if not the business, right? So to be able to have that and then to be able to have a trickle down effect when it comes to truckload and other capabilities too, it's very, very impressive. And I love the transparency and then being able to come first and being able to provide earnings and then others follow and I mean it really is a testament of what they're doing so with that being said I think we may have the dude back in the building so let's see if he's back and better than ever just talking earnings brother talking earnings with J.B. I'm with you I'm with you

15:07Juan Perez: I just I lost connection there right at a pivotal point I just want to wrap that up really super quick with the C coalition yeah please they're not their concern is not wrong I'm 100 % with them because there is no standardized testing for English proficiency and they're pro English proficiency, right? I'm 100 % on that side. Playing the discrimination card, I think is baloney. That's my case, but I'm 100 % with them, right? Because nobody's just pulling you over and saying, hey, speak English based on anything. You have to be pulled over for something else. Then they go, oh, this dude's not speaking English very well.

15:45Juan Perez: Let's get on with it. Okay. the the the earnings right here's the interesting thing about the earnings with these guys right they took a 10 million dollar hit on uh a diesel they took a 25 million dollar hit on driver costs they took a 10 million dollar hit on cargo 50 million dollar hit basically pressures right they came out with their earnings which were i mean by all intents and purposes okay but then their stock started to drop because the real story is this. Their revenue is up 11%, but it's almost all fuel. Almost all fuel. Their trailers and service are up 11%, but their loads are only up 3%.

16:27Juan Perez: They have too much capacity. Now, maybe they're getting ready for what they feel is going to be a bullish 2027, but the earnings wasn't good.

16:41Malcolm Harris: You caught me taking a sip of water because I was about to ask you a question. Did anything give you any pause with JB Hunt's earnings report?

16:49Juan Perez: No, it's exactly what I expected. And I'm not trying to say that there's any mismanagement or anything like that. I would be bullish on them because I know who's running that company. And these were all damn straight. And I'm a big fan. And they're prepping. They're not surprised by what happened here. They managed it quite well. and my opinion of the stock dropping a little bit after this being a little bit cautious because these earnings weren't as good as they thought they might be. They barely beat a lower bar than they thought. They still did pretty good, dude. 8 ,000 trucking companies went out of business over the last year and a half.

17:30Malcolm Harris: Yeah, man. Yeah.

17:32Juan Perez: And they're still making money and they're prepping for the future. I'm down with that.

17:38Malcolm Harris: I'm down with that. For sure. Could not agree more. Let's look at this last one before we get to our first guest and Juan. All right. So with this, this is out of Wyoming, but technically by way of California. All right. A California jury has awarded nearly$9.4 million to a medical supply distributor after, excuse me, finding a Wyoming-based logistics broker and its managing member made fraudulent representations since that it led, of course, to a failed$9.5 million shipment of medical gloves. So the L.A. County Superior Court jury, again, found Oaksourcing and Logistics, LLC, and Matthew John Sandvig liable for intentional misrepresentation in a dispute with Aseidel Studios.

18:23Malcolm Harris: This is a California company that imported examination gloves during the COVID-19 pandemic. All right. So the October 9th verdict awarded Ashland 9.3 million in damages, including 6.43 million in out-of-pocket expedentures and nearly 2.97 million in other losses. All right. So according to the original complaint, Sandvik told the company executives in March of 2021 that Oaksourcing had an$800 million personal protective equipment contract, long term supply chain commitments, as well as hospitals and access to substantial financing. those representations help persuade ashley to enter into the transaction and then from there as you guys know it did not happen like that so reading through this is crazy uh to put in perspective i mean just to kind of get the entire timeline of this i mean there was stuff that happened wrong at the port there were things that didn't ship there was some lying involved whenever you went through this in detail mike what are your thoughts annoy by the way did one

19:27Juan Perez: hell of a job with this article it was um so my thoughts were like this seemed almost like a normal shipment at the time during coven things were so screwed up you know what i'm saying for sure

19:48Malcolm Harris: oh man listen listen we might have lost my guy again it's it's all good though it is all good um this is a rarity we we've never but but again we're gonna get through it all right so we're gonna pick up right now um with that being said uh we are going to make our way to our next guest and i'm excited to bring him out uh have some great conversations i saw with uh just his profile it's gonna be amazing all right so uh with that being said i welcome now the senior director of trading at Monex USA. He is Mr. Juan Perez. Juan, do you have me here on What the Truck?

20:28Michael Vincent: I can hear you fine. I hope I'm not having any connection issues.

20:32Malcolm Harris: I hope not either. I hope not either. Now, Juan, I think I'm mistaken you. I wasn't, I saw, you normally don't have a beard, man. You normally clean shaven. See, I go between a goatee, a mustache, and a beard. So that's the Kansas City Royals hat, correct?

20:48Michael Vincent: Yeah, we know. I'm glad that you're wearing a jersey because it is casual Friday here. So we get to relax a little bit from wearing suits. Unlike the profile picture of me that you showed. But this is not a very, very corporate look. I have a bit of a beard going. I actually attended the University of Virginia for an executive school program. So I just kind of let it go. Just let nature run its course. um and uh the kansas city hat and the columbia jersey um during the world cup columbia played ghana in kansas city so i got to go to the uh kansas city royals uh for the 4th of july so i got to see the phillies rip like three home runs against kansas city so um always remember so this is my attire to remember basically the world cup it's a remin a day of reminiscing that's awesome

21:40Malcolm Harris: We actually had a study here on What The Truck about that and about some folks come. It was just basically talking about the traffic density and doing a whole study on how that would look in supply chain. So I thought it was pretty, pretty cool. I know we're working to get co-host Mike back. He's going to be back here momentarily. But in the meantime, man, I want to just kind of talk. We do this thing, and there's some photos that we'll get up here in about five minutes or so. But I want to talk about your past and what you've done in your career. I mean, the leadoff question I have, we've recently seen the ECB, the Fed, and the Bank of Japan all raise rates, yet currencies have moved in ways that seem to contradict the basic playbook.

22:26Malcolm Harris: Why doesn't a rate hike automatically make a currency stronger, as we have the dude himself, Michael Vincent, back in the building?

22:36Michael Vincent: um well you know and it depends on each country's central bank's approach right but one of the examples to use and you know you're asking how long i've you know i've been in this and i've been in this business for 17 years following the the flows of fx so i've been through a few you know crises of confidence but one of the things to remember is you know central banks have a governor or a president, and usually they choose how much to telegraph the message and the thinking of the officials and the voting members of that committee. What has happened ultimately is that we went, and I'm speaking very much about the Federal Reserve here, we had a Federal Reserve that was run for five, six years with your own pal whose approach was to be as communicative as possible.

23:31Michael Vincent: So when it came to, you know, Federal Reserve meetings and trying to predict what was going to happen, whether they were going to raise interest rates, leave them unchanged, or actually cut them, we were presented basically a message prior to that from commentary. And Powell never wanted the markets to feel like they were necessarily going to be hit with surprises. Throughout his tenure, that happened, but it wasn't very often. He was very, very much about messaging what the Fed was thinking. Now we're in a completely different situation. And the other thing that I'll add without you asking is the shock to this year, because one of the things in your notes that prior to having this discussion was what has the market got it wrong.

24:25Michael Vincent: But it's not so much about what the market has gotten wrong. It's the shock to the supply chain that has been presented in the form of the Iran war, which has gone long forever, and tariffs. So central banks are also in many ways, well, their main thing is to rein in inflation and control price growth. Price growth and inflation becomes incredibly difficult to predict and control when you have outside elements such as armed conflict choke points and energy supplies that are affecting everybody in a in a way that no economists had in their

25:02Malcolm Harris: models that makes too much sense mike i know you got a follow-up question for this so i'll let you get it off real quick well i'm not sure if uh mike is still with us yeah we might have some issues. All right. So I'll follow up with this one because I have a second one. For the transportation industry, currency can show up everywhere. Obviously, equipment, fuel, international freight, suppliers, customers, consumers. How closely should logistics companies be connecting their FX strategy to their broader supply chain strategy? What should that correlation look like?

25:39Michael Vincent: Well, what you have to remember is that the factors that do affect foreign exchange flows which are plenty affect the number one thing for your audience for your audience which is the net landed cost so the net landed cost the delivery cost is now being more affected than ever so you know when you have a financial trading foreign exchange system that is very u.s dollar centered and the core is the trust in its independence in central banking, its autonomy, that can be threatened by different items. So in general, you have to be very much aware of, yeah, financial flows. But one of the things now that you have to pay attention to is how much geopolitical policies and changes to very, very, you know, decades long customs and traditions have changed.

26:49Michael Vincent: So for trucking companies, for shipping companies, one of the main variables in the equation of net landed costs is customs, duties and tariffs. And one of the main things that has become difficult because you have to be truly educated is there's no longer the alliances that the United States holds with, let's say, all of Europe. It really is each and every single country needs to be aligned in some way or the other in order to actually guarantee good free trade or a good deal with the United States. That means that, for example, you might have one week in which you're focused on Southeast Asian countries, such as, let's say, frontier countries, as we say in the emerging markets, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, agreeing with the Trump administration or aligning with the White House, giving certain concessions.

27:49Michael Vincent: Okay, the tariffs applied to them will be only 10 % on all products. However, with India, that's not the case. India is not changing in ways that satisfy that relationship with the United States. What does that mean? All of a sudden, if you're getting what you thought were cheap imports from India, have now a 40 % or 30 % tariff imposed on them. So more than ever before, you have to pay attention in the trucking and shipping industry to what your net landed cost is because the variables that are important to it are now changing more than ever before.

28:31Malcolm Harris: I think we got the dude back.

28:33Juan Perez: I'm back in the house and I'm itching to ask because I was really looking forward to this one. I'm so sorry. It is my fault. It is 146 Media Studios upgrading that. We put in a new switch for the Ethernet cable here. Malcolm, you were here. I was talking about that. Yeah, I remember. We're running about 1.2.

28:54Juan Perez: Anyways, it was faulting, so I took the switch out and went back to normal. But anyways, have you spoken yet about the tools that one can use, specifically hedging on your FX exposure? Because that's near and dear to my heart and FreightWave's heart, because some people may not remember this, but this was our first play as we brought freight waves to the world was hedging against truckload cost rates, the risk thereof. Have you spoken to that yet, Juan? Because that is something that I think most people don't understand very well, the zero-sum game of hedging. And if they do understand it, they don't quite understand the percent of and why you wouldn't hedge 100 % of your exposure, right?

29:40Juan Perez: Can you talk to that a bit?

29:43Michael Vincent: Right, and without getting too nerdy or professorial, I'll throw this at you right away, but all models are wrong. Some of them are useful. So when you're sitting there and you're doing your equation and what is your, for example, what is your strike price? What is an ideal price on your, let's say, a foreign currency pair, such as U.S. dollar, Mexican peso? Now, and this is something that you may have missed because of Internet connection, but more than ever, there are other factors that hadn't been included in the thinking prior to what the administration has done, which I emphasize tariffs and the geopolitical relations have truly changed.

30:30Michael Vincent: So what does that mean? Central banks all around the world are right now very reactionary because what they're really reacting to is the inflationary shock of armed conflict and not having access to energy. So what is usually the situation in foreign exchange? I call it the two Ps. One P is, for the most part, as you mentioned, and what my business mostly does for people is protection. You're protecting yourself from the volatility and the craziness of the market. Now, I'm a commercial trader, which means that most of my trading is done because it has to be done, meaning on the spot. T1, T2 delivery, these things have to be done because payments, invoices have to be paid.

31:16Michael Vincent: But the best strategy right now is to do a combination of taking care of some of your spot, like immediate payments, when the market is good. So right now we're having this conversation. There was a four week dollar rally. Right. So most of the United States is settling in U.S. dollars to purchase a foreign currency to do a payroll or to buy to pay for their imported import invoices. Right now, this is a time to take advantage of the spot, as well as looking into the future and say, hey, Juan, I'm looking for, I understand that long-term planning right now is a nightmare. Forecasting and predictability are in the back burner.

32:03Michael Vincent: So do one month, three month, six month forwards. We are encouraging people to do short-term forwards to do what? What those contracts guarantee is that you only have to pay. And the best thing is this. If you have an excellent cash management situation and great financials, congratulations, you're going to get a credit. You're not going to have to put up a margin, meaning a deposit prior to doing a forward contract. But if you are doing a forward, you're guaranteeing yourself a price out to that entire period of payments. You can withdraw early. You can pay as needed from that balance. And one of the things that you guys also put in your notes prior to my discussion is what is the risk when you do forwards?

32:49Michael Vincent: Well, you already guarantee yourself a price, but you may be thinking, Juan, I'm going to pay you 80 percent, 90 percent of the balance when it is due. at the moment of maturity. But if there is a margin call, so what is a margin call? I know it's not the most fun thing to do, but it's not a horrible thing. The market right now is crazy. So that means that at any given point, the market movement can represent half or what we would say 50 % of your original deposit. So let's say the market moves 4%. That makes a major difference because you paid an 8 % deposit. So on a margin call, the only thing we're doing is we're not charging you extra.

33:30Michael Vincent: We're just saying from the total balance that is due, we need a little bit more collateral because we need to protect our position as well. So it really is, we merge ourselves in working as a team with accounting and treasury in order to make sure that yes, you are protected for the short term, but that you also understand that there is a little bit of risk in which we may need to ask a little bit of collateral. One thing, and that's covering the P, right, guys, the protection part. The other P is participation. The market is wild. The market is volatile. Fantastic. Juan, I want to be able to take advantage of it.

34:08Michael Vincent: I want to be able to participate within that volatility. We are seeing that happening more than ever before. Now, obviously, not to get too deep into it because we only have so much time, but interest rate differentials do make a difference. So, for example, because of our company and the nature of what we do, U.S. dollar, Mexican pair is highly volatile. And that's because, you know, the interest rates in the United States are only so, so high, and they're higher over by the central bank in Mexico. So that, the carry trade appeal, near shoring, all of these things affect it. It makes for a very, very crazy, highly volatile, highly susceptible, very vulnerable currency pair.

34:48Michael Vincent: That's when it makes sense to look into structures and to talk to us about options, understanding that there is a bit of a risk there not to use the g word too loosely but it is a bit of a gamble however it can be it can be an option meaning that you can opt out of something or have the right to purchase at something that's going to be far more beneficial to you so these conversations are important because now more than ever you have to number one be very basic about it what do i really want to do? Do I want to protect myself? And of course, most treasury departments are doing that. And do I have the ability to participate?

35:28Michael Vincent: So that's the way that companies are approaching this FX market right now.

35:32Malcolm Harris: Senior Director of Trading at Monix USA, Mr. Juan Perez. Juan, final question before we get to our next guest. If our listeners and viewers want more information based off of today's discussion, because I feel like we just scratched the surface, How can they get in touch with you? Because this was some masterful work from you.

35:52Michael Vincent: Well, I appreciate it. So, you know, typically, you know, our website is monixglobal.com, which has an analysis and market breakdown. We do, and as you imagine, this has been the busiest we've been because of all the changes. I mean, we just came off from an 18-month dollar best against currencies overall. So we've been quoted a lot on Reuters, Bloomberg. So if you just want to know the flows of dollar on a weekly basis with the narrative shifting, please go on our website. And I'm on LinkedIn. I mean, I'm not super exclusive. So if people feel like they want to message me with a question, I'll be more than happy to try to answer.

36:41Michael Vincent: But on LinkedIn, you can see very clearly all of my articles and appearances. And obviously, thank you guys for having me. It's been obviously fun to talk about it. But like you said, we're only touching a little bit of it. It's a lot going on.

36:55Malcolm Harris: It's a beautiful thing. Juan, thank you so much. Go Royals. And I hope you have a good weekend, OK?

37:01Michael Vincent: Well, good luck to you trying to beat Alabama. The game I'm watching out for is Missouri and Ole Miss. Those are two very interesting teams. So I would say to the audience.

37:10Malcolm Harris: You got Missouri or you got Ole Miss? I like Chambliss.

37:12Michael Vincent: I like Chambliss, so I like Ole Miss' situation. Honestly, if Lane Kiffin is in LSU and he sees Ole Miss win it all, that would be fantastic for all of America.

37:24Juan Perez: I love this guy. I love this guy. I love this guy. Who you got, Indiana or Ohio State? Quick, who you got, Indiana or Ohio State, bro?

37:33Michael Vincent: I got Indiana. I like Signetti. I'm obviously from a DMV area, so we love JMU. James Madison University. So anybody that succeeds in that, you know, from those humble roots, we definitely cheer for.

37:48Juan Perez: I like James Madison too, and I want to hate him, but I love Signetti. I think he's fantastic. He's an old school guy. Love it, bro. Thank you, man.

37:56Malcolm Harris: Thank you guys so much. Have a good one. You as well. You as well. I love that he wants to.

38:01Juan Perez: I love his take on Lane. I think it's fantastic.

38:05Malcolm Harris: No, I thought it was fantastic as well, man. He's a good guy. We got a couple guests to get to, and I want to be mindful of the time. Let's get to them, man. And we're going to get to them fast, quick, and in a hurry, because coming up next, he is the VP of Growth and Communication at OVN. All right. And his name is Alex Pugachev. Has the coolest name. I mean, you sound like a UFC fighter, Alex. Welcome to the show.

38:29Michael Vincent: I'm Ukrainian. Good morning, guys.

38:31Malcolm Harris: How are you? What's up, man? It's good to see you. My fun fact. My uncle was Ukrainian via marriage. They got divorced, but he was the coolest guy ever. So I'm cool.

38:42Michael Vincent: Okay, cool.

38:44Malcolm Harris: You're like, okay, how was that?

38:47Michael Vincent: I mean, I heard a lot of this person who's Ukrainian, so I'm not impressed.

38:53Malcolm Harris: I like you.

38:53Juan Perez: I like your style. I like your style. This guy's awesome. I like him. Come on, Fraze. Fraze, bring up that picture that I got there for Alex here. Let's get into this real quick. There it is.

39:03Malcolm Harris: There it is. Where is that? No, that was Juan. That was Juan. Oh, is that Juan? This is Alex right here.

39:10Juan Perez: All right, here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner, coming straight from the warehouse floors, the loading docks, the driver's seats, hailing from Sterling Heights, Michigan, but operating coast to coast. A man who has answered phones at two in the morning every single morning since 2015. A fighter who does not take days off. That's not a catchphrase, ladies and gentlemen. That's a lifestyle. Ladies and gentlemen, from the fastest growing logistics company in America, Alexander Pugatov.

39:42Malcolm Harris: Wow. I mean, that was dynamite. That was, yeah, that was fancy. That wasn't bad, was it? That wasn't bad. It was really good, Mike. Fantastic.

39:53Juan Perez: He does look like he's about to step in the ring, though. For sure. For sure. For sure.

39:58Malcolm Harris: So let's talk, Alex, because before Verilane, where was the biggest bottleneck that you'd say and getting a driver from application to actually hauling a load and getting it done. What would you say that looked like?

40:09Michael Vincent: We was getting about 30 to 40 applications every single day, and it was like the biggest bottleneck. It was a complete nightmare. I mean, going through all that paperwork, it was just taking us days, sometimes weeks, to approve the drivers and move them forward. Verily in cut the times up to, I would say, 50%, 70%. So now instead of days, we're going for like hours.

40:32Juan Perez: Wow. Wow, wow, wow. So you're able to process those people very quickly. Let's talk about AI's read of the whole file, right? So you can, utilizing AI to make this much more efficient as far as understanding that information versus that gut check that we all have when we're hiring somebody or bringing them on. Can you talk to that dynamic?

40:53Michael Vincent: Yeah, so basically the drivers have the app, which is they download and look at the OVN is Uber perspective. The driver has the van or owner operator has the van. He downloads the app, uploads all the documents, and then we start checking all the documents manually, or used to. Right now, the AI just takes seconds. It uses the driver's license as an anchor, and then it looks to the insurance, to the company documents, to the billing info, to the vehicle registration, and all that to make sure everything is right and correct. And then it gives approval in seconds, and owner operator is ready to hit the road.

41:29Malcolm Harris: So, million-dollar question for you here is, why would you want to build this yourself instead of kind of looking at like an already existing platform? I mean, was there something lacking? Was there a custom component that you wanted? Why build this yourself? Great question, Malcolm.

41:44Michael Vincent: Actually, all those platforms that we tried, they kind of made for the semi-trucks, for the big rigs, you know. And Expedite is completely different story. We're not DOT regulated. We're under 10 ,000 pounds. So most of those tools are just completely useless. Plus, we want to use all the experience that we have for the past 10 years and use it in our own TMS and have it built the way we want it, you know. So make it faster. We know everything from inside. So that's why we build it ourselves. That's the short answer.

42:14Juan Perez: That makes sense. I'd love it. I'd love to dig into that process of how you coded all that stuff and put it in there because that's a whole show in itself. That's IT question.

42:25Michael Vincent: I get it.

42:29Juan Perez: But let's talk about, we often talk about the gates and then the cracks in the walls and the windows, right? So you got verification up front. And, you know, in my days, hey, they got insurance. Fantastic. Put them on the load. That's not good enough anymore, is it? That single qualification isn't good enough. How do you guys handle that?

42:47Michael Vincent: Well, used to, like every single company, they were just checking for the documents to present in the file, right? Right now, the AI checks the documents, for example, as insurance. The owner-operator can upload the insurance. We're going to verify that, and three days later, he's going to cancel it to get his money back. So our AI calling bot is actually calling continuously in the continuous loop and checking those insurances over and over and over again to make sure the owner-operator is covered.

43:21Malcolm Harris: So I want to talk driver experience. We touched on AI a little bit. We'll kind of dabble back and forth into it. But is there a point when it comes to the driver experience, if we're making this thing too automated in terms of onboarding, all right, does it make it feel less humanized for the driver? How do you balance between obviously a better product, but then making the driver feel like this is still like a human and that, you know, this is a necessary component for them as well, if that makes sense. It does.

43:51Michael Vincent: Great question. Actually, the AI just checks the paperwork. And in case if something goes wrong, AI just flags that and send it to my onboarding team, and they contact the driver. So there is a still human factor. AI works with AI. Human works with human. We're trying to keep that personal touch with the owner-operators so they don't feel that plastic-ish.

44:16Juan Perez: So, I mean, when we're talking about fraud and trust, right, you're verifying all the bank accounts, et cetera, requiring live videos or photos of the vehicles, et cetera, right, and making sure all that connective and everything goes through there. How much of it is really about speed and how much of it is ultimately about the accuracy and that trust, right? Can you go too fast to miss something and how do you handle those type of gaps that might be there?

44:44Michael Vincent: With our platform right now, it's almost impossible to miss anything. Any artifacts of like a Photoshop intrusion or we're all living in the AI era, right? Any document can be made like in faked in seconds, right? So that's why we have the AI bot that's calling to the provider to find out if there is still a coverage, if the VIN number is listed, is OVN certificate holder, if ovn is uh um anyways so uh to live photos why we did that um the driver doesn't have an ability to upload the photos from the gallery because most of the drivers will upload the photos when the vehicle is brand new come out out of the dealership right we just want to make sure the driver will upload light photos so we can see if there is any damage in the vehicles if there is any stickers in the vehicle uh if there is uh anything wrong with the vehicle because this van is on the market i mean it's on the road and it presenting us as a brand and which is super important thing on the market for us right to to be to make a company appearance correct

45:52Juan Perez: like a front of the customers and all that right right right verification to create that trust

45:58Malcolm Harris: that makes sense yep no peak season it's i mean it's here i mean let's just call it what it is uh how does the onboarding speed actually affect uh your available capacity that's a very curious

46:10Michael Vincent: question i got well it's much more loads and we just have an ability with that system to bring as much uh capacity as we need to cover all the needs for our customers so it's all about the speed

46:25Malcolm Harris: i'm gonna follow up and double dip here mike talking about the bigger ai question all right agentic ai we hear this 24 7. like literally it's thrown out so much in logistics constantly It feels like a concrete example because the AI is actually doing the work that the people are previously doing manually. What makes agentic AI rather than just another automation tool? What makes it actually come into fruition? Because people don't necessarily know the differentiator between the two.

46:56Michael Vincent: Well, agentic AI can make decisions. as an AI calling bot can talk to the agent of the insurance provider. You know, sometimes they even recognize itself if the insurance agent, I mean, the insurance provider has the AI agent as well. They switch into those weird sounds like RDD2, you know, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, which is funny to listen. Yeah. So, Agentic AI can do the tasks. Regular AI just do the check marks. It checks for the presence of the documents and it says, okay, but agentic AI just more complicated and it can do the task and make a decision.

47:34Malcolm Harris: So, Mike, you got something? I'm sorry.

47:38Juan Perez: Yeah, no, I mean, I'd love to dig further into the AI development of it, but I see this. Is this something you guys are developing and going to market out to everybody else, or is this you keeping this in-house for the time being?

47:51Michael Vincent: Right now, we're going to keep it in-house to make sure everything is correct, working correctly. And then most likely, yeah, it's going to go out for sale.

47:59Juan Perez: So you'll commercialize it at some point and bring this out to other people. Fantastic.

48:03Michael Vincent: I mean, as for me, I think it needs to be standard in the industry for sure. I mean, because with the... Yeah, go ahead, Mike.

48:14Juan Perez: Just building out those security infrastructures and redundancy is absolutely needed in the industry, right? Because that's what we're trying to do is fill those gaps in the walls and those windows that we leave open after they enter through the carrier entrance to the gate. Because that's where it happens in protecting that data. Because a lot of times, as we know, it's somebody posing as a legitimate broker or a legitimate carrier that this happens. And it happens on a transactional level. They don't create contracts. Well, sometimes they do if they're working for the USPS. and rip them off for years.

48:56Juan Perez: But it's usually a single load or one or two loads, right? And then they're poof, gone. And then they move on to something else. So having that transactional verification over and over is essential, right?

49:08Malcolm Harris: That was a nice shot, Mike. I love that. Alex Bukachoff, he's a VP of Growth and Communication at OVN LLC. Alex, I cannot thank you enough for being here on What the Truck and looking forward to seeing what you and the rest of the team at OVN get done because it is a fantastic work. So kudos to you and the rescue team.

49:26Michael Vincent: Thank you very much. Thank you guys for having me. Have a good day.

49:29Malcolm Harris: Thank you so much. You as well. You as well. And our final guest is going to be here momentarily. I'm really excited to get him on. It has been quite the show. We have talked about a little bit of everything. And this is going to be no shortage of information. So I want you guys to buckle up because joining us now officially, he is the Vice President of Product Management at Samba Safety. He is Mr. Steve Schwent.

49:51Juan Perez: Steve did I get your last name right now you got it right you're uh you're not you're not alone I think everyone who says that for the first time is is wondering you know how it's how it's set but I was really looking forward to this day because I wanted you to redeem yourself because you you

50:09Malcolm Harris: you butchered it on Wednesday oh my god it was so bad I said Schmidt I was like come on he said I was like, dude, you added a letter and took three out of them. I added an M. I mean, I was like, come on, Malcolm. It snuck up on me so fast. And I was like, OK. I'm glad Mike brought it up.

50:26Juan Perez: Now I know where we stand.

50:30Malcolm Harris: Oh, man. As our last guest, we got about 10 minutes tops. So I want to get to the meat and potatoes. But Mike, I need you to do your thing. Because I think this is good. Real quick. Real quick phrase.

50:42Juan Perez: Bring it up, bro.

50:44Malcolm Harris: In terms of the... He's on the way. Don't worry about it. It's just Frazier. It's been... There it is. There it is.

50:53Juan Perez: Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner, from the quiet corners of product strategy, in this corner, Hayden from Portland, Oregon, a man who earned a Juris Doctor from Lewis and Clark Law School, but refused to practice law. Instead, he chose to build, to create, to lead, ladies and gentlemen, from the driver's safety division leading Gorda into the future, Steve Schwent. There it is, brother. Wow. I need you guys in my corner at all times. Anytime I'm going to introduce myself to anything, I'm just, I need you guys behind me with the AI images and those types of introductions. We got you. I think so.

51:38Juan Perez: You know, I've always thought, I'd like to walk around and just have my theme music playing for every time I walked into a room, right? Wouldn't it be kind of cool? Like you have somebody just walk in and just announce you like that to every room you walk into. That would be fire. That would be fire. You're my hype man.

51:54Malcolm Harris: Yeah, absolutely. That's right. That's right. That's what he does. All right. So the state of fleet telematics. Let's talk telematics in the show. This 2026 report. All right. There's a lot that has gone through it. I want you to talk to us about the landscape right now in telematics and what's so different now than compared to a few years ago, because I know this can be a 30 minute conversation, but just high level for us, Steve. What does that look like? Let's tip it off.

52:22Juan Perez: Yeah, sure. Before I answer your question, Malcolm, just real quick for folks who maybe aren't familiar with the report you're referencing, Samba Safety just released our fourth annual telematics report. And it's essentially a comprehensive survey and report across fleets, insurance brokers and insurers that goes into great detail on what their perspectives are on telematics and how they're using it, what their challenges are. And I think very interestingly, like what their relationship is in the context of telematics amongst each of those parties. So, you know, kind of one of the common themes that came out of this report and where telematics is in how it's being used and the perception around that, the core theme and thesis is that, you know, we're not in a state of adoption anymore, especially in the regulated transportation space that is further along that journey and more mature with its adoption.

53:33Juan Perez: of telematics technologies. What our respondents were telling us is that their challenges are more around, how do we use this data? How do we interpret this data? How do we actually take action on it to reduce risk and improve safety within our organizations? The numbers speak loud in that regard. of our respondents, over 90 % cited that they use telematics technologies. And the percentage, obviously, of those who have been using it for many, many years continues to increase as they become more mature with these technologies. So you've got a huge respondent that say that they're using the technologies and are getting that data.

54:23Juan Perez: But we all know, and Malcolm, he really predicted what I was going to ask at the beginning saying, a man drowning in data. We know that's a real case in many places. They get data for the sake of data and they drown and they never really extract actionable insights or things that they can make strong decisions on. Are you finding through discussing these things and surveying that people are actually utilizing this data to its fullest and utilizing it for impactful measures? Yeah. I mean, it's going to vary greatly depending on where an organization is at with kind of their level of maturity and adoption with telematics.

55:09Juan Perez: I would say, like, as far as using it to its fullest capabilities and effectively and maybe having confidence that they're doing that is not necessarily the norm. More organizations than not, I think, are still trying to refine what their processes and strategies are with this data. They're still maturing in the sense of making sure that their overall safety policies and their overall strategies incorporate this data in the most effective way. And I think one of the most obvious examples that came up in this report of that notion is how few of our respondents cited that they were using telematics data to assign training to their drivers.

56:05Juan Perez: Across all of of respondents, that number was, or that percentage was only 26%. It's higher in the transportation space. It was 41%. But, and I'm biased here, because this is part of my role at Samba with our training capabilities. Like to me, 41 % is still incredibly low. There's a lot of opportunity for, right. And, and like to us, we, we know, and we have proven the efficacy of, of using training and, and even more specifically e-learning based on telematics data, which is incredibly rich from a, you know, daily driving habit perspective. Like we know that that reduces violations. We know that that reduces crashes in the longterm.

56:55Juan Perez: So I think that's the biggest opportunity for fleets and where we see a big gap, but there are still many organizations who, you know, they're struggling just by analyzing the data from a sure kind of like quantity and frequency perspective. And that's a different challenge than say like operationalizing how you manage to that data. I love it. I mean, you're looking at this data. So do you assist and can you assist and what do you think are the best practices or the one or two metrics that they should be looking at, right? Because having data is different than having the bandwidth and intelligence bandwidth to be able to understand what it's telling you.

57:43Juan Perez: People can make spurious conclusions and actually go off in the wrong direction, right? And it sounds like your heart is in directing them on how to use it correctly and make the best impact. Yeah, and I don't want to necessarily comment on like some data, like certain data points are the best data points to look at. Well, how about just a strategic road? What is the best strategic road? Yeah, I think the most important thing, especially if you're a fleet who's having challenges, you know, just sorting through the data and kind of knowing where to start with it is to recognize that the data is not all equal in terms of like the occurrence of these events.

58:31Juan Perez: Like these telematics events are happening a lot every single day and you can't treat every single event the same way. That's when you're going to start drowning in that data and get lost. So one of the most important things is to prioritize and create your safety policies or incorporate your approach to how you evaluate this data and treat this data differently based on how important it is. And importance usually is defined by severity times frequency. And the name of the game is to focus efforts on those drivers who are introducing the most risk in an organization. You know, we talk a lot about like 80-20 rules and that kind of stuff.

59:19Juan Perez: But if you can just define, you know, what, who the top 10 % is of who's incurring the most frequently severe events uncovered through telematics data, that's the most important thing. And that's where I would recommend starting. The more successful and mature fleets are not just using that as like a starting point. What they're doing is they are operationalizing these intervention strategies. Like they're writing them into their safety policies that are consistently applied and enforced and very importantly made transparent to everyone in the organization, including drivers. And there's buy-in through and through.

1:00:10Juan Perez: So this is, you know, you guys want to invite me for another podcast. we'll spend an hour talking about safety policies and culture of safety, but that's kind of where I'm going with this is the best organizations are not just doing these things in silos. They're not just using this data coming off and trying to scattershot approach it. They're defining their strategies, they're being strategic with who they talk to and why and what those topics are, And they're making sure that the entire organization has rallied around those strategies and that the strategies are truly operationalized.

1:00:52Malcolm Harris: Well, Steve, I think we are definitely going to have to have you back on because we, again, have just scratched the surface on everything that comes to what you and the rest of the team at Samba Safety are doing. And so we really appreciate you for being here on What the Truck and looking forward to having you back on sooner rather than later, my brother.

1:01:12Juan Perez: Yeah, appreciate it, guys. The risk report or the telemax report can be found on our website, SambaSafety.com. So definitely check it out. There's some really great insight in there.

1:01:22Malcolm Harris: Absolutely. We sure will. And we'll be sure to link that as well. Again, Steve Schwent, the VP of Product Management at Samba Safety. We appreciate you, Steve. sco ducks okay let's do that let's do that this is the type of show for that right i believe in you more than i believe in dan lanning i'll just say that yeah we we need some support right now

1:01:46Juan Perez: so you need a lot we'll see we'll see how this weekend goes yes sir yes sir we appreciate you

1:01:51Malcolm Harris: steve we appreciate the rest of our guests let's look at the road ahead before we get out of here this weekend because we have three great guests coming off of a fantastic weekend that i hope you guys have. All right, so the first is going to be, if I look at my handy dandy, oh, here it is right here. All right, so we're going to have Mike Branch. Of course, he's the VP of Data and Analytics at Geotab. We're also going to have Jim Arthurs. We've had Jim on the show previously. He is a fantastic dude. And then -

1:02:17Juan Perez: Those look like the same - We're going to have Steve McGarry.

1:02:20Malcolm Harris: They might be. We don't know. We'll check and see and find out. But for myself and Michael Vincent - Those pictures look familiar to me. It's been one heck of a show. peace and love we'll see you when we see you alright have a good weekend guys I love it I love you.

1:03:17Outro Music