Wabash National Corporation

Heavy transportation equipment stocks reported a satisfactory second quarter, with revenues beating analysts' consensus estimates by 2.2% and next quarter's revenue guidance coming in 8.6% above expectations. Greenbrier was the weakest performer, with revenues of $576.5 million, down 31.6% year over year and missing estimates by 5.9%, while Wabash was the best, with revenues of $417.2 million, down 9.1% year over year but beating estimates by 3.6%. Allison Transmission delivered the fastest revenue growth of the group, up 92.4% year over year to $1.57 billion, and its stock is up 8.6% since reporting. On average, share prices of the 12 tracked companies are down 3.9% since the latest earnings results.

Wabash National guided third-quarter 2026 revenue to $440 million to $460 million and an adjusted loss per share of $0.50 to $0.40, while CFO Patrick Keslin said material margin should improve by 200 to 300 basis points in the fourth quarter as pricing actions flow through. CEO Brent Yeagy noted that backlog grew 14% sequentially to $956 million, marking the first second-quarter backlog increase in company history, and said the order book for 2027 production was fully opened in late June. Keslin reported second-quarter consolidated revenue of $417 million with an adjusted non-GAAP operating margin of negative 5.6% and adjusted EBITDA of negative $9 million, while quarter-end liquidity stood at $193 million, supplemented by $150 million raised after the quarter through a convertible note offering. Management expects positive EBITDA in the second half of 2026 and anticipates 2027 EBITDA in the $150 million to $170 million range, assuming a replacement-demand recovery.

Citizens initiated coverage of the Transportation, Logistics and Services group with twenty-two names, naming FedEx among its top large-cap picks alongside FTAI Aviation, Union Pacific and C.H. Robinson, according to a note from analyst Jeff Kauffman. The firm assigned a mix of Market Outperform and Market Perform ratings with no Market Underperform ratings, citing a projected acceleration of the group's earnings recovery and momentum through late 2027. For mid- and small-cap names, Citizens favors GXO, U-Haul parent UHAL, Knight-Swift, Wabash National and Covenant Logistics, along with a story-specific Market Outperform rating on FTAI Infrastructure. Stocks in the coverage group have generated 33.8% average returns year-to-date in 2026, compared with 20.0% for the Russell 2000 and 10.7% for the S&P 500. Kauffman described the early phase of an economic recovery as one of the best windows of the cycle to own these names, with Citizens forecasting 2.3% real GDP growth in 2026, slowing to 2.1% in 2027, implying low-single-digit growth for rail freight and low-to-mid-single-digit growth for trucking. The firm pointed to six positive PMI readings this year following 38 months of negative readings, calling the current freight cycle one of the longest freight market declines, with the industry now emerging into a new upcycle supported by tight truck capacity and low inventories requiring restocking.