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Chicago, IL – November 12, 2025 – Today, Zacks Equity Research discusses J.B. Hunt Transport Services JBHT and Saia SAIA.
Link: https://www.zacks.com/commentary/2789021/2-truck-stocks-to-keep-an-eye-on-despite-industry-headwinds
The Zacks Transportation-Truck industry continues to face ongoing supply-chain disruptions, a difficult macroeconomic backdrop marked by inflation-driven high interest rates and a shortage of truck drivers.
Despite these headwinds and the resulting demand uncertainty, the industry has shown resilience, particularly among companies focusing on growth strategies and operational efficiency. Notable players expected to withstand these challenges include J.B. Hunt Transport Services and Saia.
The Zacks Transportation - Truck industry houses truck operators transporting freight to diverse customers, mainly across North America. These companies provide full-truckload or less-than-truckload ("LTL") services over the short, medium or long haul. The range of trucking services these companies provide includes dry-van, dedicated, refrigerated, flatbed and expedited.
Some companies have an extensive fleet of company-owned tractors and trucks, and independent contractor trucks. Besides trucking, most entities offer logistics and intermodal services as well as value-added services like container drayage, truckload brokerage, supply-chain consulting and warehousing. A few also offer asset-light services to other third-party logistics companies in the transportation sector.
Supply-Chain Disruptions & Weak Freight Rates: Although economic activities picked up from the pandemic gloom, lingering supply-chain disruptions continue to dent stocks in the industry. Below-par freight rates are also hurting the industry's prospects. Highlighting the weak freight demand, the Cass Freight Shipments Index declined 5.4% year over year in September. This measure has deteriorated year over year each of the past seven months, which confirms the overall declining trend.
Focus on Cost-Cuts to Drive Bottom Line: Despite signs of cooling inflation, we are by no means out of the woods. We note that the industry has been experiencing supply-chain disruptions and significant levels of inflation, including higher material, labor and transportation costs. The imposition of tariffs adds to the margin pressure. The industry players are focusing on cost-cutting measures and making efforts to improve productivity and efficiency, to mitigate high expenses and a weaker-than-expected demand scenario.
Prolonged Truck-Driver Shortage: The persistent driver crisis in the trucking industry is worsening supply-chain challenges across the United States. Driver scarcity issues limit trucking capacity, making it difficult for trucking companies to meet increased freight demand. American Trucking Associations' chief economist, Bob Costello, expects the trucking industry to be short of more than 160,000 drivers by 2030.
Tariff Turmoil: A Key Headwind: The current administration is focused on protectionism that restricts international trade to help domestic industries. The U.S. administration's tariff policies are reshaping the transportation service industry by increasing costs, disrupting supply chains and influencing consumer behavior. The tariff turmoil is hurting global trade. Tariff-induced economic uncertainties and trade tensions may create uncertainty for investors interested in the industry.
The Zacks Transportation - Truck industry is a 12-stock group within the broader Zacks Transportation sector. The industry currently carries a Zacks Industry Rank #239, which places it in the bottom 2% of 244 Zacks industries.
The group's Zacks Industry Rank, the average of the Zacks Rank of all member stocks, indicates dismal near-term prospects. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.
The industry's position in the bottom 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries is a result of a negative earnings outlook for the constituent companies in aggregate. Looking at the aggregate earnings estimate revisions, it appears that analysts are gradually losing confidence in this group's earnings growth potential. The industry's earnings estimate for 2025 has decreased 30.9% on a year-over-year basis.
Before we present a few stocks from the industry that you may want to buy or hold on to, let us take a look at the industry's recent stock market performance and the valuation picture.
The Zacks Transportation-Truck industry has lagged the Zacks S&P 500 composite and the Transportation sector over the past year.
The industry has declined 31.4% over this period, underperforming the S&P 500's appreciation of 14.2% and the broader sector's downslide of 13.9%.
Based on the trailing 12-month EV-to-EBITDA (enterprise value to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization), a commonly used multiple for valuing trucking stocks, the industry is currently trading at 11.82X compared with the S&P 500's 18.24X. It is above the sector's EV/EBITDA of 10.03X.
Over the past five years, the industry has traded as high as 16.3X and as low as 7.86X, with the median being 12.38X.
J.B. Hunt: J.B. Hunt Transport Services provides a broad range of transportation services to a diverse group of customers in the United States, Canada and Mexico. JBHT is benefiting from efforts to reward its shareholders through dividend payments and share repurchases.
Shares of JBHT have surged 14.5% year over year. JBHT currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3 (Hold). The company has surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in two of the last four quarters (missing the mark on the other two occasions). The average beat is 3.4%.
You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
Saia provides regional and interregional LTL services. The firm offers full value coverage, logistics services, distribution and consolidation, trade show, customs clearance, retail delivery, cross-border shipping to Mexico and Canada, and offshore shipping to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
SAIA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings has been revised 2% upward over the past 60 days.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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