Stock Analysts Urge Buy on Trucking Shares

tock analysts said they expected to recommend buying or holding trucking stocks longer than they normally do when the economy is expanding because a rare convergence of market forces could significantly improve motor carriers’ profit margins throughout this year, as long as they can avoid adding capacity.

“This will be a terrific place to invest in 2004 and perhaps into 2005 primarily on the basis of the tightening industrywide supply-demand dynamic,” analyst John Larkin of Legg Mason Wood Walker wrote in a statement to clients.

Michael LaTronica of the Excalibur Group agreed. “At the end of 2004, you will see the stocks higher than they are now,” he said in an interview. “Based on rate increases being put in place, we’re going to see a very good year for this group.”