Top 5 Freight Stocks To Buy Right Now

Top 5 Freight Stocks To Buy Right Now: Knight Transportation Inc (KNX)

Knight Transportation, Inc. (Knight), incorporated on August 31, 1989, is a provider of multiple truckload transportation services, which generally involve the movement of full trailer or container loads of freight from origin to destination for a single customer. The Company is a provider of multiple truckload transportation services with a nationwide network of service centers through which it operates one of the tractor fleets. In addition to its own fleet, the Company also partners with third-party equipment providers to provide truckload capacity and a broad range of solutions to truckload shippers. The Company has five operating segments comprised of three asset-based operating segments: dry van truckload, temperature-controlled truckload and port services and two non-asset-based operating segments brokerage and intermodal services. Through its asset-based and non-asset-based capabilities the Company is able to transport, or can arrange for the transportation of, gen eral commodities for customers throughout the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico.

The Company's asset-based businesses generally include dry van truckload, refrigerated truckload, dedicated truckload, and drayage services. Its non-asset-based services generally include rail intermodal and truckload brokerage services. However, within its asset-based services, the use of independent contractors to provide tractors lowers the capital investment in its dry van and refrigerated operations. In addition, drayage operations generally involve less expensive tractors with longer lives and do not require a investment in trailering equipment. As of December 31, 2012, it operated 3,627 company-owned tractors with an average age of 1.9 years. It also had under contract 507 tractors owned and operated by independent contractors. Its trailer fleet consisted o! f 9,564 53-foot long trailers with an average age of 5.5 years and includes 1,092 temperature-controlled trai lers.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Victor Nguyen]

  A report released Thursday morning, Citigroup analyst Christian Wetherbee upgrades Knight Transportation (NYSE: KNX) to BUY from NEUTRAL, increasing price target from $17 to $22.

• [By Sean Williams]

  Swift Transportation (NYSE: SWFT  ) , for example, delivered a 4% increase in revenue this past quarter in spite of having fewer trucks in service. The company was able to realize better utilization of its existing fleet and actually saw fuel prices fall from the previous year. The results were even more robust for Knight Transportation (NYSE: KNX  ) , whose shareholders saw revenue rise by 7% as the company grew from the year-ago quarter for the 14th straight time and delivered growth from each of its business segments.

• [By Seth Jayson]

  Calling all cash flows
  When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Knight Transportation (NYSE: KNX  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

source from Top Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksblog.com/top-5-freight-stocks-to-buy-right-now.html