Schneider National downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens

Stephens analyst Jack Atkins downgraded Schneider National to Equal Weight from Overweight with an unchanged price target of $28. The firm concedes that the current freight recession has been deeper and lasted longer than it had anticipated, but adds that it has “nevertheless been disappointed by the cyclically and lack of durability” of Schneider’s earnings power despite the company’s diversified modal mix with scaled operations in Truckload, Intermodal and Logistics, and outsized exposure within its Trucking fleet to the more stable dedicated market. The firm estimates that Schneider’s trough EPS on a last-twelve-months basis this cycle could be down 41% from the last cycle trough, which it notes is worse than Knight-Swift’s (KNX) trough-to-trough performance despite dilution from USX and significant third-party insurance accruals.