FW: Truckload carriers’ forecasts cut heading into Q1 prints

© Edwardgerges

FREIGHTWAVES reports:

Analysts are cutting earnings estimates for truckload companies heading into first-quarter reports. Acknowledging decent demand, analysts cited an overhang of truck capacity, which is constraining pricing and margins, as the reason for the latest round of revisions.

“We exit 1Q much like we entered it for truckload-related transports — feeling okay about volumes but bad about pricing and expecting downward EPS revisions for businesses that live on this annual pricing cycle,” Susquehanna Financial Group’s Bascome Majors told clients on Monday.

He said pricing pressures alongside “steady but not spectacular volumes” will weigh on first-quarter numbers, which he cut by 26% to 32% for the TL carriers he follows. His new TL and intermodal forecasts “remain meaningfully below” consensus estimates, but his outlook for freight brokers is more in line with the averages.

Majors cut his first-quarter earnings-per-share estimate for intermodal provider J.B. Hunt (NASDAQ: JBHT) by 11% to $1.40…

The full post can be found here.