Management from J.B. Hunt Transport Services provided upbeat commentary at an investor conference on Tuesday. It said truck capacity has notably tightened, and that demand is trending a little ahead of prior expectations.
“Demand seems to be a little bit more positive than what we were expecting early January,” said Brad Delco, J.B. Hunt’s chief financial officer, at Barclays 43rd Annual Industrial Select Conference in Miami.
Tender rejections and spot rates started moving higher the week before Thanksgiving and haven’t experienced the typical seasonal retreat so far this year. Delco said most of J.B. Hunt’s (NASDAQ: JBHT) customers are still saying the changes aren’t structural and that the winter storms in December and January are behind the market shift.
Following months of increased regulation on the driver pool (English-language proficiency requirements, non-domiciled CDL restrictions, and ELD and driver school crackdowns), the company experienced a modest, but “as-expected,” peak season. Yet, even without materially improved demand, the market remains tight in the seasonally weakest part of the year.
SONAR: Van Outbound Tender Rejection Index (VOTRI.USA) for 2026 (blue shaded area), 2025 (yellow line), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line). A proxy for truck capacity, the tender rejection index shows the number of dry van loads being rejected by carriers. Current tender rejections show a tightened truckload market.To learn more about SONAR, click here.
SONAR: National Truckload Index (linehaul only – NTIL.USA) for 2026 (blue shaded area), 2025 (yellow line), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line). The NTIL is based on an average of booked spot dry van loads from 250,000 lanes. The NTIL is a seven-day moving average of linehaul spot rates excluding fuel. Spot rates stepped higher through peak season as new constraints on the driver pool took hold.Severe winter weather amid a tighter capacity backdrop kept rates elevated in recent weeks.
Winter storms were a headwind to volumes in January, Declo said. He also acknowledged that weather has driven some of the change in market balance. However, he believes a “pretty considerable amount of supply attrition” has occurred. He said the capacity squeeze has been most noticeable on the purchased transportation expense lines in both its brokerage and truckload units. (The company’s asset-light TL segment uses independent contractors to haul freight in J.B. Hunt trailers.)
Discussing the impact of regulatory enforcement, Brad Hicks, president of dedicated contract services, said “there’s no doubt that’s contributing.” He noted driver hiring has become more competitive in some markets, even “without much [help] on the demand side.”
While the multimodal transportation provider said “it’s still too early” to frame expectations for bid season, the company’s two main segments appear poised to perform in 2026 following a three-year-plus downturn.
J.B. Hunt’s dedicated pipeline will produce net fleet growth in 2026. The company sold dedicated service on 1,200 tractors last year but the fleet contracted by roughly 100 units (net) given planned customer attrition. Management reiterated a longer-term goal of 800 to 1,000 trucks of net growth annually. It also said customer retention rates have historically been above 98%.
It inked deals with 41 new customers last year, which was a record. It normally starts with just a few trucks at a new account. New accounts operate underwater for the first three months, typically becoming breakeven by month six, meaning anything onboarded after June is usually a drag on results.
Most of its annual growth comes from existing accounts. It noted many dedicated customers have been operating under reduced daily truck commitments, but as those businesses rebound, so will their truck needs.
J.B. Hunt is calling for moderate growth in dedicated operating income this year. However, numerous account implementations this year should set the stage for better results next year.
Management remains adamant that it won’t have to retool its intermodal approach if the Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP)-Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) deal is approved.
“We don’t know why that would have to change if a merger is completed,” Delco said. He said the company plans to continue using its lone rail partner in the West, BNSF (NYSE: BRK-B), along with both Eastern railroads, Norfolk and CSX (NASDAQ: CSX).
J.B. Hunt has been winning share in the East. Two-year-stacked growth rates were in the high-single digits throughout 2025, with the fourth quarter up 11%. The market is benefitting from a third consecutive year of excellent rail service, and the volume growth has occurred during a period of excess TL capacity (depressed truck rates) and relatively low fuel prices.
“We don’t have either of those tailwinds right now and we’re seeing that type of growth in a market where we compete more directly with trucks,” Delco said.
SONAR: Outbound Domestic Rail Container Volume Index for 2026 (blue shaded area), 2025 (yellow line), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line). It shows the daily volume of intermodal containers moving in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The index is a 7-day moving average using the date that containers were in-gated at a point of origin. Intermodal trailers (trailer-on-flatcar, or TOFC) are excluded.
Delco noted that intermodal investments have been “prefunded” and that the company can onboard new volume without having to add capacity for the foreseeable future.
Growth-oriented capital outlays will likely occur in the dedicated business as new deals are signed. The business model is more stable than traditional one-way as dedicated contracts are usually multiyear, covering a large portion of a tractor’s useful life.
With modest capex requirements and ample operating leverage in a recovery (recent cost takeouts totaling $100 million, or 80 basis points of operating margin, have been announced so far), the company has a fair amount of optionality for cash deployment. It repurchased $923 million in stock last year and has $968 million remaining under a share repurchase authorization.
