quarterly earnings

Check Call: Q1 earnings did most carriers no favors

(GIF: GIPHY)

It’s earnings season, which means it’s time to see how the competition stacked up.

Starting off earnings season was none other than J.B. Hunt’s brokerage unit reporting a $17.5 million operating loss as loads declined 22% year over year, with revenue per load down just 5%. The main reason for the loss was higher insurance expenses and integration costs from the acquisition of BNSF Logistics. The company overall reported earnings per share of $1.22 instead of the $1.50 target,...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-q1-earnings-did-most-carriers-no-favors

Check Call: The broker dry spell

(GIF: GIPHY)

In 2021 it seemed like there was a new freight brokerage opening daily. When you can get away with insane margins and are making money hand over fist, it would be a mistake not to open a brokerage.

Fast forward to late 2022 and 2023, and the freight recession hits. Those new brokers haven’t been through a downturn before, and there isn’t a strong sign of the freight market returning to its glory days anytime soon, leaving some newer players to weather the storm in uncertain...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-the-broker-dry-spell

Check Call: ‘Member your first day, brokers?

people gathered around a desk of computers. Check Call news and analysis for 3pls and brokers

Hot Take

Image: imgflip.com

’Member when it was your first day in a chair trying to broker freight? Yeah, good times or not. After talking to a lot of people in the brokerage and logistics world, everyone’s first days started out pretty similarly. 

“Hi, welcome aboard. Here’s your desk. Good luck!” 

We’ve recently covered the importance of training and setting people up for success, but what about things you wish you had known when you first started? Taking a trip down memory lane can help those...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-member-your-first-day-brokers

Check Call: Super Bowl by the numbers

people gathered around a desk of computers. Check Call news and analysis for 3pls and brokers

Hot Take

Image: memes.com

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Rams on the Super Bowl win. As a St. Louis native, I was rooting for the Bengals — actually, any team that wasn’t the Rams — but it is what it is. I’m also not the biggest football fan, but between the halftime show and all of the food consumed around the big game, I started thinking about what happens to make the Super Bowl such a spectacle.

First the food: The Super Bowl is the second-biggest eating day of the year, followed behind...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-super-bowl-by-the-numbers

Check Call: Another RFP, woo

Episodes of Check Call the podcast come out every Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. EST on FreightWavesTV.

Want to be on the show?

Reply to this email with your biggest supply chain headaches for a chance to join me on the Check Call podcast.

Hot Take

Image: makeameme.org

One thing everyone loves to hate but we can never get rid of is the good ole request for proposal. Who doesn’t love sifting through endless rows of data, wondering where to even begin to understand what is wanted as a response? There can be...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-another-rfp-woo

Check Call: Trust the experts

Hot Takes

Image: SONAR Market Dashboard

TRAC us out! Yeah … that was a bad pun. Moving on. FreightWaves has formed the Trusted Rate Assessment Consortium (TRAC), which provides the freshest view of spot rates in the U.S. Fresh rates PLUS SONAR data. I mean, what else could you want?

TRAC is a little different from other spot rate measurements in several ways:

  • Data is collected at the time a load is covered or accepted by the carrier. 
  • There are a minimum of five contributors with no single...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-trust-the-experts

Check Call: Cloudy with a chance of profits

Hot Takes

Image: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

At the beginning of 2020, no one could have predicted the transportation market would be where it is today. With a pandemic that shut down the world for weeks, spot market rates reached the highest they have been in years and capacity has gotten tighter than a lid on a pickle a jar.

In this industry, more so than others, you have to be ready to change your course of action at any moment. Most days aren’t the same in the freight world. You come into various...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-profits

Check Call: Data is everywhere

Hot Take

Image: memecrunch.com

Getting useful metrics that actually help provide an accurate picture of what is happening can be challenging. Metrics can simply be on-time rates, bounce percentages and visibility. Or they can get more in-depth with margin, revenue and service per carrier/shipper. 

Scorecards for carriers, shippers and brokers aren’t going anywhere. They’re here to stay and through some proper planning and development, you can make them work for you. 

Using the data collected...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-data-is-everywhere

What is operating ratio?

A photograph of a train locomotive and a truck trailer.Just what is operating ratio?

Operating ratio (OR) is a way for investors to compare the financials of one company against its peers. Investors use OR to gauge whether a company is generating sufficient profits. 

The formula to calculate OR is to divide a company’s operating expenses by its revenue. Put differently, it is one minus the operating margin percentage. For example, a 20% operating margin is the equivalent of an 80% operating ratio. Operating expenses include items such as fuel,...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/what-is-operating-ratio

+ More
Join Our Newsletter
Enter your email to receive a weekly round-up of shipping news.
icon
By subscribing, you agree with our privacy policy and our terms of service.