In a continuing effort to gauge the COVID-19 outbreak’s effect on the trucking industry, HDT has launched a second survey to measure how fleets are being affected around the country. ...
Square Inc (NYSE: SQ) shares rocketed higher by 11% on Thursday after the company reported losses that more than doubled in the first quarter of 2020.Square reported a first-quarter adjusted earnings per share loss of 24 cents, missing analyst expectations of a 13-cent profit. However, revenue of $1.38 billion exceeded consensus estimates of $1.29 billion.Investors also likely took comfort in management comments on the earnings call suggesting volume growth rates have improved since mid-April.Several analysts have weighed in on Square.Divergent Businesses Morgan Stanley analyst James Faucette said COVID-19 understandably has had more of a negative impact on the company's Seller business than on Cash App."Reacceleration in merchant acquiring business is likely to take significant time, which in turn is likely to perpetuate the growth disparity between the merchant acquiring business (Seller business) and its alternative consumer bank (Cash App)," Faucette wrote in a note.RBC Capital Markets analyst Daniel Perlin said Square's...
(Bloomberg) -- First, J. Crew. Now Neiman Marcus. Flashing red: J.C. Penney, Hertz and many more.Get ready for what could be the most jarring stretch of corporate bankruptcies in memory. The coronavirus has crushed the life out of some venerable household names.For many troubled companies, like luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group Inc., which filed on Thursday, the lockdown super-charged the effects of pre-existing problems like debt overloads and the inability to please fickle consumers. For others, the debt they rack up while the pandemic rages may prove insurmountable once the health threat is over.Few industries have been spared.“Everyone’s distressed watch list has become so big that it doesn’t even make sense to call it a watch list -- it’s everyone,” said Derek Pitts, head of debt advisory and restructuring at PJ Solomon, which tracks the financial well-being of hundreds of companies using a color code. “You turn page after page and...
As U.S. oil prices plunged, sand suppliers have shut mines, dismissed workers and slashed operations as customers stop drilling and fracking new shale oil wells. "You can drive by plants and see which ones have already been walked away from," said Peter Allen, a director at closely held Black Mountain Sand, which operates mines in Texas and Oklahoma. "It will remove a substantial amount of supply and will leave the healthy companies in place," he said, adding Black Mountain sits on enough cash to weather the downturn....
While early estimates for 2019 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show an overall decrease in highway fatalities for the third consecutive year, fatalities involving trucks over 10,000 pounds rose slightly. ...
