Finally, relief? J.B. Hunt executives say freight market is in ‘the first part of an upcycle’
Key takeaways
- J.B. Hunt's leadership emphasized a structural shift in the freight market, with capacity shrinking and demand improving.
- The company’s revenue excluding fuel surcharges increased by 3.5%, with notable growth in brokerage and truckload divisions.
- Despite positive outlook, inflationary pressures and driver recruitment challenges persist.
- Shares surged over 6% following the earnings report.
Among the many prominent trucking executives who have been careful to proclaim any sort of turn in the freight market since 2022, the leaders of J.B. Hunt Transport Services have been especially cagey of late.
No longer.
Speaking to analysts and investors after the No. 4 carrier on the FleetOwner 500 list of top for-hire companies reported its first-quarter earnings April 15, Spencer Frazier, EVP of sales and marketing, sounded quite definitive about the state of the market.
“Things are structurally different. Capacity is continuing to exit the industry. Customer demand is solid,” Frazier said. “I think we’re in this structural change and the first part of an upcycle.”
Similarly, President and CEO Shelley Simpson introduced her team’s conference call by saying, “the freight environment felt meaningfully different than what we’ve operated in over the past several years.” Key to that, she and others noted, has been the continued shrinking of capacity as regulators have cracked down on cabotage as well as driver language requirements, among other things. But Simpson pointed out that “early signs of improved demand” have also helped Arkansas-based J.B. Hunt.
Along with cost-cutting programs and other operational efforts, that environment has led J.B. Hunt “to shift from a defensive posture to playing offense,” Simpson said. That shift showed in the company’s first-quarter results: Revenues excluding fuel surcharges rose 3.5% to $2.65 billion while operating income popped to $207 million from $179 million early last year.
At the division level, intermodal services—which account for about half of J.B. Hunt’s top line—grew 2.4% year over year, but its operating income grew to $114 million from $94 million in the first three months of 2025. The company’s brokerage and truckload divisions led the way in terms of revenue growth with year-over-year increases of 20% and 23%, respectively. Frazier pointed out that revenue per load in those businesses climbed 9% and 3%, respectively, versus last year.
Frazier said that J.B. Hunt thinks it’s taking market share during this freight market transition and also noted that many shippers have changed their behavior after taking the stance into early this year that the regulatory-driven market changes would be temporary.
“We’re seeing far less price-led decision-making and far more focus on execution quality,” he said. “They’re adjusting to capacity challenges with frequent mini-bids. They’re consolidating freight with fewer, more reliable providers, and they’re prioritizing scale, visibility, and execution.”
Despite the overall improvement in their tone, J.B. Hunt executives still sounded a few notes of caution during their conference call. CFO Brad Delco repeatedly said inflationary pressures—mostly from insurance premiums, medical costs, and labor spending—aren’t abating and pointed out that the company’s price increases in the past year haven’t kept up with his estimate of core inflation.
On the labor front, Brad Hicks, president of dedicated services, highlighted that the exit of market capacity in the past year and more has turned into a recruiting challenge.
“We are experiencing increased challenges in driver hiring that we haven’t seen in years,” Hicks told analysts. “We are well-positioned to handle these challenges, but it is a notably different environment.”
Investors were far more focused on the upbeat market assessment; however, shares of J.B. Hunt (Ticker: JBHT) rose more than 6% to about $239 on April 16, hitting an all-time high during the day. Over the past six months, they have now climbed 40%, pushing the company’s market capitalization to about $22.7 billion.
J.B. Hunt’s report, the first by a trucking company this earnings season, also lifted the shares of many other carriers. The iShares Transportation Average ETF (Ticker: IYT) finished the day up 1.6%, leaving it just shy of the highs it set roughly six weeks ago.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of experience in business journalism. Since 2021, he has written about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications FleetOwner, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, Oil & Gas Journal, and T&D World.
With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector and many of its publicly traded companies.