Saturday, October 28, 2006

Wachovia Downgrades Trucking

On October 24, 2006, Wachovia downgraded the Trucking Sector to Underweight. As a result of the slowdown in the economy and other factors, they believe T.L. and L.T.L. carriers will struggle operationally, causing Wachovia to see more risk than reward in trucking stocks over the next few quarters. The firm T.L. capacity has loosened due to increases in intermodal usage and a slowdown in the housing and auto sectors. As a result, heavier freight has been pulled out of L.T.L. networks.

Additionally, Wachovia downgraded Arkansas Best (ABFS 41.62), Heartland Express (HTLD 16.52), Swift Trans (SWFT 25.00), and U.S. Xpress (XPRSA 22.70) from "Market Perform" to "Underperform" and downgraded Knight Transportation (KNX 18.16) from "Outperform" to "Market Perform"