Transports Lead Stock Rise as Indexes Set New Records

This story appears in the March. 18 print edition of Transport Topics.

Trucking and transportation stock indexes have increased more rapidly over the past six months than those for the broad market, with most of the growth coming since the start of 2013.

While the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 9% in value to reach a record high in the six months ended March 11 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 has grown 8.9%, the transportation average has rallied 20.6% and the S&P trucking roster surged 24.3%.

Within the transportation average, UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp. contributed to the increase, as did four freight railroads and four trucking companies.

C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. and Expeditors International of Washington Inc. — the two non-asset-based logistics companies on the transportation average — posted some recent declines, however, after earlier gains.

Company executives and analysts offered no consensus on the meaning behind the gains. Optimists said the increases demonstrate a judgment by investors that trucking earnings will improve this year. Skeptics said trucking stocks are rising off a very low base period, and that well-run companies are benefiting from tight freight-hauling supply rather than a boom in demand for services.

“2013 is poised to be the ‘Year of Transports,’ ” analyst Peter Nesvold wrote to clients of Jefferies & Co. His confidence in the industry’s outlook has firmed as the year has progressed.

Three recent data points suggesting improvement, Nesvold said, are the jump up in January truck tonnage to a record high, the year-over-year gain in diesel consumption and the increase in airfreight for FedEx and UPS.

Nesvold told investors that rallies in freight-transportation stocks usually start in trucking.

“As go trucks, so go transports,” he said.

Tom Kretsinger Jr., president of American Central Transport, said he is optimistic based on the results of his privately held business based in Liberty, Mo., and conversations at the recent Truckload Carriers Association meeting where he was elected chairman.

“I’m seeing a first quarter like I’ve never seen before. We’ve been busy, and I look at indexes published by investment banks, and I don’t think it’s just us,” said Kretsinger, whose 300-truck company hauls general commodities in dry vans.

Looking at the economy, American Trucking Associations’ chief economist, Bob Costello, said the run-up in prices is somewhat perplexing.

“I’m not a predictor of stocks, but I don’t expect a robust economy this year. I think 2013 will be a snapshot of what we saw in 2012,” Costello said.

“The housing and energy sectors will probably grow, which is good, but manufacturing has cooled down and personal consumption will probably be about the same. If you add all of that up, I don’t think this year will be much different than last year,” he said.

Thomas Albrecht of BB&T Capital Markets came down closer to Costello, saying he does not see a boom developing.

“We’ve only seen a couple of months of improvements, after trucking and transportation stocks have underperformed for more than two years,” Albrecht said.

“Once a tax deal was struck in early January . . . the rules of engagement became more clear,” Albrecht said, adding that January is often a time when investment managers place new bets on

stock performance on sectors that have performed poorly in the recent past.

Those two developments helped move the general stock market, and improvements in the housing and automotive sectors are good for trucking, Albrecht said, noting that he wants to see if the gains stay through midyear.

“There’s usually a midyear reassessment, and you’ll see investors pause then,” he predicted.

Kretsinger said his TCA colleagues were generally upbeat because of increasing U.S. employment and higher asset utilization rates for trucking.

However, analyst John Larkin wrote to clients of Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. that the biggest gains in trucking might be reserved for larger carriers. Several trends within trucking play “into the hands of the large, well-capitalized, well-systematized carriers,” Larkin said. “They have the sophistication to run complicated driver recruiting, training and retention programs. They have the lowest cost of capital. They are best able to satisfy big customers’ needs.”

Costello added that equipment pricing also tends to favor larger carriers. He has argued recently that the cost of new tractors could become the critical factor driving some carriers out of business. In previous years, it was sudden spikes in fuel prices that hurt carriers, but new tractors costing around $125,000 each might be more troublesome now, he said.