Weak Rates And Excess Capacity Wreak Havoc On Fourth-Quarter Transport Earnings
In the Chart of the Week, we take a look at fourth-quarter transportation earnings and dissect the underlying trends and takeaways. Overall, it was a rough quarter for nearly all transportation companies as the effects of continued excess capacity, an industrial recession, the trade war with China and stubbornly high cost inflation (primarily in wages and insurance) wreaked havoc on reported results. That being said, many transportation executives are hopeful of better times ahead, especially in the second half of 2020. We aggregated publicly traded companies from truckload, brokerage, LTL, rail and intermodal and compared their results across revenue, operating income, operating ratios (ORs) and earnings per share (EPS) to decipher any under- or outperformance in the quarter. Truckload Results Were Ugly, But Broad-Based Optimism Brewing For Improvement In 2020 On average, publicly traded truckload revenues were down 3.9% on a year-over-year basis (worse on a size-weighted basis), operating income was down 57%, operating ratios were up 5.6% to 93.7% and earnings were down 59%.
Weak Rates And Excess Capacity Wreak Havoc On Fourth-Quarter Transport Earnings
In the Chart of the Week, we take a look at fourth-quarter transportation earnings and dissect the underlying trends and takeaways. Overall, it was a rough quarter for nearly all transportation companies as the effects of continued excess capacity, an industrial recession, the trade war with China and stubbornly high cost inflation (primarily in wages and insurance) wreaked havoc on reported results. That being said, many transportation executives are hopeful of better times ahead, especially in the second half of 2020. We aggregated publicly traded companies from truckload, brokerage, LTL, rail and intermodal and compared their results across revenue, operating income, operating ratios (ORs) and earnings per share (EPS) to decipher any under- or outperformance in the quarter. Truckload Results Were Ugly, But Broad-Based Optimism Brewing For Improvement In 2020 On average, publicly traded truckload revenues were down 3.9% on a year-over-year basis (worse on a size-weighted basis), operating income was down 57%, operating ratios were up 5.6% to 93.7% and earnings were down 59%.