ROAD

The Van Buren trucking company's earnings per share were 31 cents for the quarter that ended June 30 compared with a 35-cent loss per share for the same quarter in 2017.
Total revenue for the period, including fuel surcharges, increased to $135.4 million compared with $107.4 million posted for the year-ago period. Excluding fuel surcharges, the company had revenue of $119.1 million for fiscal 2018's second quarter.
In Thursday's earnings report, James Reed, USA Truck's president and chief executive officer, said the company delivered solid results for its fourth-consecutive quarter and attributed the progress to "our most critical metric, revenue per truck per week."

Trucking apparel company S.H.E. Trucking Apparel is hosting an upcoming event called The Big Rig Kids with Grandma Polly. Renee Brown, a former trucker who is also known as Grandma Polly, is an author of a series of books to inspire young adults.
S.H.E. Trucking stands for Sisterhood Helping Empowerment in Trucking. The business’ event is designed to present a window into the trucking industry for young women who may want to explore the field as a career option.
“We encourage kids and adults can come out to get a full experience,” CEO and Founder of S.H.E. Trucking Sharae Moore said in a prepared statement. “Dream big. You can be anything you want to be.”

A common theme in Stifel’s notes was the historically tight capacity environment that U.S. freight markets are currently experiencing: in the reports, Chan characterized capacity tightness as ‘secular’ and ‘structural’, implying that for the foreseeable future, shippers will be forced to rely on brokers to source capacity. 
Stifel rated CH Robinson a ‘buy’ with a price target of $101 (20x estimated 2019 earnings per share), XPO a ‘hold’ with a price target of $118 (27x estimated 2019 EPS), Echo a ‘buy’ with a price target of $34 (18x estimated 2019 EPS), Landstar a ‘hold’ with a price target of $123 (17.8x estimated 2019 EPS), and Universal Logistics a ‘hold’ with a price target of $27 (16x estimated 2019 EPS).

Volume at auction lower than predicted

The volume of used trucks going to auction continued to be lower than expected in May due to heightened demand. Fleets are keeping existing equipment on top of purchasing used trucks. J.D. Power described pricing as “stable to slightly downward” as a result.