Boston, MA 07/24/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Short-to-medium truckload carrier, Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) shares generated significant demand among the investors in the last two days of trading. The volume of trading is more than doubled in the last couple of days. It could well be attributed to the favorable news on the earnings result front.
Stocks In Demand
Shares of tHeartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) witnessed an uptick of 6.9% and 1.6% on July 22 and 23 respectively. While 1.07 million shares changed hands on Tuesday, more than 891K shares were traded on Wednesday. The volume assumed importance since the 3-month average volume was 441K shares. In the process, the stock had hit a yearly high price of $24.20 on Wednesday while its low was $13.74 in the same period.
On the technical side, Heartland Express stock had broken both the 50-day, as well as, 200-day moving average price of $21.73 and $21.38 respectively. The favorable trend can be attributed to the better than expected profit in the June quarter after struggling to meet the analysts’ estimations in the preceding two quarters. In a way, it can be viewed that the investors have returned to the counter after being in the sidelines for quite some time.
2Q Results
Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) reported net income of $26.5 million, up 38.7% from $1.91 million while earnings advanced 30.4% to 30 cents a share from 23 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Wall Street analysts’ consensus earnings estimation was 25 cents a share.
Operating revenues jumped 69.4% to $227 million from $134 million in the previous year quarter. It included revenue from fuel surcharge of $46.2 million versus $27.3 million in the year earlier quarter.
Heartland Express’ operating ratio was 82.1% of operating revenue compared to 78.1%, whereas net margin accounted for 11.7% of operating revenue versus 14.3% in the prior year quarter.
Other Metrics
Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) disclosed that its tractor fleet’s average age had improved to 2.2 years from 2.0 years. It closed the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $16.14 million. The company has been paying dividend in the last forty-four straight quarters.
