Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc shares jumped 13% to $51.68 in early Friday trading after the diversified freight transportation company reported third-quarter 2023 financial results that surpassed the analyst consensus estimate for both its top and bottom lines.
Knight-Swift generated earnings per share (EPS) for the period of $0.41 on revenue that rose 6.5% year over year to $2.02 billion.
Analysts expected $1.9 billion in revenue along with EPS of $0.36.
The results prompted JPMorgan to upgrade Knight-Swift stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underweight,’ while noting that its USX acquisition is showing progress sooner than expected and in a very difficult truckload market.
"Expectations were uniformly negative heading into earnings and fell even further after the disappointing update by J.B. Hunt earlier in the week, we expect KNX will be able to hang on to most of its +16% post-market gains on the USX narrative shifting to be less negative," the analysts wrote.
BofA analysts, meanwhile, raised their target price by $4 to $65 per share and have a ‘Buy’ rating on the stock.
Shares of Knight-Swift Transportation have fallen 3% year to date.
Contact Sean at sean@proactiveinvestors.com