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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grommit who wrote (6007)	2/10/1999 12:29:00 PM
From: Q.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78514

Grommit, the trucking industry might be a good value now, but a cautious investor might avoid your picks XPRSA and TCAM. That's because they are highly leveraged, with debt/equity of 1.35 and 1.44 respectively, vs. an industry average of 0.6. Operating margins in this industry are typically 7.5%, which is slim enough that you can go from profit to loss too easily if you use a lot of leverage and something goes wrong. So that low p/e you are looking at should be evaluated along with the risk it faces. If you want to compare to an example of a trucking company with the best financial model, try the 6th largest co. by market cap: HTLD. Zero LTD and industry-leading operating margin of 17%. marketguide.com A funny thing about trucking companies is that you might think they should be cyclical, but there is also a counter-cyclical effect at play: when the economy is good, they can't get enough drivers and the top line suffers. This is HTLD's only problem at the moment.

To: Grommit who wrote (6007)	6/14/1999 8:41:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 78514

Trucking: re: Grommit Feb. post: It's now for XPRSA imo. Starting small position today. My summary: Earnings below expectation. Lots of debt. Insiders (Class B) control and run it. But price near low and dropping close to book value (if I calculate from SEC correctly). PE and PSR at relative lows. Very aggressive acquisitor. They seem to claim to be an early adopter of technology also. Pass on TCAM. John G. Nice call on USFC. I'm still watching SIMN. Occasionally checking JBHT (mentioned here by somebody). Still own TFH. FWIW, Paul Senior