Wall St. opens flat as investors await big earnings
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks opened little changed and held steady at record levels on Monday as investors turned their focus to a busy earnings week from big U.S. companies.
Lytx opens new Canadian office, R&D lab
Earnings Watch: J.B. Hunt Second Quarter Profit Falls
The second quarter earnings season for trucking kicked off on Monday morning with J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. reporting a small decline in profitability.
Net earnings fell 6.8% from the second quarter of 2016, totaling $97.9 million, or 88 cents per share, 4 cents less than a consensus forecast from analysts and compared to 92 cents per share a year earlier.
This happened despite a 7% increase in total operating revenue of $1.73 billion while total operating revenue minus fuel surcharges increased 5% from a year earlier.
The Arkansas fleet attributed the increase in revenue to load growth of 5% in its intermodal operation, a 5% increase in revenue producing trucks in dedicated operations and a 20% hike in volume with its brokerage business.
Operating income for the current quarter totaled $164 million versus $176 million for the second quarter 2016, a 7% decline.
“The benefits of volume growth and increases in revenue producing truck counts were substantially offset by lower customer rates, increases in rail and over the road purchased transportation costs, start-up costs associated with new DCS (dedicated) contracts, higher driver wages and recruiting costs, increased insurance and claims costs, increased equipment and facility maintenance costs and increased technology costs,” the company said in a statement.
J.B. Hunt's intermodal operation reported revenue increased 7% to $1 billion from a year earlier while operating income improved 4% to $110 million. The period ended with approximately 85,600 units of trailing capacity and 5,300 power units assigned to the dray fleet, an increase of more than 4,000 units of trailing capacity with only a slight gain in power units.
The dedicated operation saw second quarter revenue increase 8% to $412 million while operating income fell 4% to $49 million as a net additional 486 revenue producing trucks, 226 net additions compared to first quarter 2017, were in the ...Read the rest of this story
A Former Lehman Brothers Trader: It’s Time To Buy Brick And Mortar
Everyone thinks it is only a matter of time before Amazon puts every department store, every mall, every brick-and-mortar retailer out of business. Amazon gets an infinity market cap and everyone else gets zero. Is Amazon a great business?
Amazon deals yet another huge blow to Blue Apron
The hits just keep on coming for Blue Apron. After already suffering the indignity of trading...
Design work begins on Highway 17 parking
TDG regulations updated