Better Buy: XPO Logistics vs. Knight-Swift Transportation

XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) and Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings (NYSE: KNX) have both been major consolidators over the years, assembling powerful collections of assets in different segments of the global shipping industry.

Knight-Swift traces its origins back to a family-owned trucking firm formed in the 1950s, and has used a steady progression of acquisitions to build itself into a coast-to-coast trucking powerhouse with 21,000 employees and more than $5 billion in annual revenue. XPO, meanwhile, is a logistics and brokerage specialist that has used dozens of U.S. and international acquisitions to grow from $177 million in sales to $17 billion in a decade.

But 2019 has been a difficult year for the transport sector, with headwinds including a global slowdown, trade wars and tariff uncertainties, and falling corporate confidence eating into demand and profits. The closely watched Cass Freight Index, a measure of North American freight volumes and expenditures, has trended below 2018 levels for most of the year. And XPO CEO Bradley Jacobs said during a September call with investors that the U.S. has "been in an industrial recession for the last year."

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Source Fool.com