The freight recession is real and the carriers are feeling the pain. We know the smaller carriers are truly suffering however today Schneider (
SNDR) reported and it does not appear to be pretty. First, relative to expectations it was a tough quarter. From
Seeking Alpha:
- EPS missed by .02 on Non GAAP and by .11 on a GAAP basis
- Revenue was down 7.7% YoY and missed expectations by $40mm
A couple of key points from their
press release:
- Volumes and price were "compressed" and while they stated there was a "moderate" uplift in the seasonal volume the tone of the message was it was virtually meaningless. We have learned this from other carriers: There has been no meaningful "surge" period.
- We knew there were shutdown costs due to the closing of the First to Final Mile business (Which opened to a lot of fanfare about 2 years ago) but I found it surprising they had to impair the value of trucks they are selling. This tells me they are shrinking the fleet and are actually taking losses on the equipment to dispose of them.
- While their truckload numbers are tough to decipher due to impacts of the FTFM closure and the impairment of tractors, both intermodal and logistics (think brokerage) suffered as well. Intermodal was down 2% due to volumes and Logistics was down 13% (Blamed on a major customer insourcing).
- They lowered their guidance from what was $1.30 per share to $1.38 and it is now $1.24 to $1.30. Again, this appears to be due to the tractor impairment charge. Interestingly they lowered their CAPEX for the year which again, indicates to me they are shrinking the asset base.
My opinion is the freight recession is even tougher than originally stated for all carriers. While I do think there is some "kitchen sink" activity going on here (So many losses due to shutting down the FTFM that they are adding in other stuff to clean up) I think the recession is real.
