USA Truck posts third quarter loss of $1.6 million

For the trucking industry, things are indeed tough all over.

Van Buren-based USA Truck Inc. announced Thursday morning (Oct. 22) a net loss of $1.6 million in the third quarter, compared to a gain of $2.4 million in the 200 quarter. Total revenue for the quarter was $96.171 million, down 34.1% from the same period in 2008.

Arkansas Best announced Wednesday (Oct. 21) a third quarter 2009 net loss of $5.6 million, compared to net income of $15.4 million in the third quarter of 2008. The Fort Smith-based less-than-truckload company has lost $50.17 million in the past four quarters.

With a loss of 16 cents per share, USA Truck missed analyst estimates of a 10-cent per share loss.

“Truckload industry conditions remain challenging. Businesses continue to operate at reduced inventory levels, which has made the recession seem much worse than the actual macroeconomic contraction would suggest,” USA Truck President and CEO Clifton Beckham noted in the earnings statement. “The lack of freight demand has created excess tractor capacity industry wide, which, when coupled with shippers’ needs to cut transportation costs, has put severe downward pressure on freight pricing.”

It’s not all bad. Beckham said the company believes freight conditions “have likely bottomed” and are in a recessionary trough.

“We experienced slight seasonal improvement throughout the third quarter, which resulted in our fundamental operating metrics and results improving sequentially in each month of the quarter,” Beckham said in the note.

But don’t expect improvements in the next quarter or two.

“As we previously stated, we believe industry conditions have bottomed. However, we anticipate the next two quarters will be similar to recent ones, and there will likely be sequential downward pressure on industry pricing as lower priced second and third quarter bids take effect. We believe the imbalance between industry tractor capacity and freight demand will not improve materially until businesses begin restocking their inventories, which we do not expect in the near term,” Beckham noted.

Revenue totaled $282.051 million for the first nine months of 2009, down 32.7% from the same period in 2008. The truckload company has lost $4.665 million in the first nine months, compared to a $2.541 million gain in the same period of 2008.