On the earnings call Wednesday for publicly traded 3PL RXO, Ravi Shanker of Morgan Stanley asked the question that lingered after the upbeat statements by company management: How can this company’s leaders be so optimistic?
Shanker is one of the network of transportation analysts who have sat through one dreary Q1 earnings call after another, with executives across the spectrum all talking about the “soft” market — a four-letter word that has come up on virtually every call — and forecasts that...