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Investing.com -- J.B. Hunt Transport Services (NASDAQ:JBHT) shares fell more than 1% in premarket U.S. trading on Wednesday after the transportation and logistics company reported second-quarter results that beat Wall Street forecasts despite ongoing volume and pricing pressures.
J.B. Hunt reported per-share income of $1.31 on revenue of $2.93 billion. Analysts had anticipated earnings per share of $1.30 on revenue of $2.92 billion.
The beat comes even as operating income fell 4% from a year earlier, weighed down by increased operating expenses.
Revenue in the intermodal segment, accounting for nearly half of total revenue, rose 2% year over year, supported by a 6% rise in volume, but pressured by lower revenue per load due to freight mix and pricing.
The intermodal division has been a crucial cog in J.B. Hunt’s operations in recent months, helping somewhat mitigate the impact of slipping revenues from its dedicated contract services unit and elevated equipment and maintenance costs.
In response, executives at the firm outlined plans to cut expenses by $100 million, which analysts at Barclays (LON:BARC) said could bolster results partially in the second half and "more so" in 2026.
"Nonetheless, investors seemed a bit confused on management’s announcement of a cost plan with plenty of questions surrounding timing and impact on margins. We suspect based on management commentary that the $100 million target comprises incremental efficiency opportunities in the business which will likely require some future growth to fully achieve and with some partial net offsets likely from inflation," the Barclays analysts said.
Intermodal container volume, or shipping of goods through two or more different modes of transportation, rose by 6.2% in April versus a year earlier and 1.7% in May, according to data from the Intermodal Association of North America cited by UBS.
In June, based on weekly carload figures, the volume number is estimated by UBS to have risen by 3.4% year-over-year. The brokerage added that the projection would imply "fairly stable" monthly volumes through the second quarter of around 715,000 units, which would be in contrast to prior expectations for a sharp falloff in May and June.
"Volumes appear to have softened from mid-May to mid-June but this was buffered by stronger volume in early May and late June," the UBS analysts said in a note to clients.
However, they flagged that visibility into container shipping volumes in the final six months of 2025 is "murkier" beyond July, adding that they expect low-single digit quarter-on-quarter intermodal voume growth in the third quarter but a sequential decline of around 3% in the fourth quarter.
(Yasin Ebrahim contributed reporting.)