Spekulatius, Grommit, others who might be interested in trucking stocks: Fwiw, I decided to step up for a just a very few shares of HTLD today. To me, it seems the clear top-performer in the truckload sector (as measured by ROIC and avg. annual stock return).
I don't like paying for the high p/sales and high p/book that I see. OTOH, it might be worth it when stacked against the company's very good (imo) ROA, revenue growth, and profit margins. One normally presumes (okay, well I do anyway)that the trucking business is highly-competitive with low barriers to entry, and consequently not very profitable. The profit margins for Heartland though haven't been below 10% since 1995. And sales have grown about 10% on average over the last five years.
Here are some positives from the latest quarterly:
"The Company ended the second quarter with cash, cash equivalents, and investments of $229.1 million, a $26.7 million increase from the $202.4 million reported on December 31, 2003. The Company's balance sheet continues to be debt-free. The Company opened its newly acquired (December, 2003) Carlisle, Pennsylvania facility in June, 2004. This location is much larger than the previously leased facility and will provide a solid base of operations in the Northeast."
To me, if one is going to invest in the sector, one ought to consider HTLD. Maybe the price isn't quite in bargain territory, but otoh, trucker HTLD delivers results better than some growth stocks I own. (Which might not be saying much, but it's enough to get me to purchase a few HTLD shares today) |
