Werner Enterprises Sees Weak Q3 EPS

(RTTNews) - Transportation and logistics company Werner Enterprises Inc. (WERN), Monday said it expects earnings for the third quarter to be in a range of $0.27 to $0.30 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters currently estimate earnings of $0.36 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

The company noted significant factors affecting its third-quarter earnings including lower gains on sales of equipment, lower miles per truck, and start-up costs related to new dedicated fleets. Higher equipment and maintenance costs as well as rising driver related costs also affected the earnings.

In the last five weeks, Werner experienced improvement in freight demand compared to softer freight demand trends in the same period a year ago, which it attributes to normal seasonal improvement, slightly tighter capacity due to the hours of service changes, and slightly improved customer demand.