J.B. HUNT TRANSPORT SERVICES, INC. (JBHT): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $261.03, J.B. HUNT TRANSPORT SERVICES, INC. (JBHT) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~5.9 years. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-24.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Exported: 2026-08-31 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/JBHT

Headline

FieldValue
TickerJBHT
CompanyJ.B. HUNT TRANSPORT SERVICES, INC.
Sector / IndustryIndustrials
Current price$261.03/sh
CompositionJBI (Intermodal) 50% / DCS (Dedicated Contract Services) 28% / ICS (Integrated Capacity Solutions) 9% / FMS (Final Mile Services) 7% / JBT (Truckload) 6% / Intersegment Eliminations 0%

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin (value-band context)7.1%
Operating margin today7.5%
Margin compression (value-band)-0.4pp
Must persist for5.9y
Multiple paid27x operating income

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 9.6% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling.

How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)

ReferenceValue
vs own history+1.05σ
cohort percentile (of 225 peers)71

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based/earnings-power land below the price.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset3.32x5expensive
Earnings2.46x5expensive
Relative1.14x2expensive
Growth0.86x3justifies

Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.9%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=15)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$303.120.86xyesFCF base $1.1B, growth 5% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.9%, 6yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$319.160.82xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 13.3x / 15.3x / 17.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr
Relative ValuationRelativenoP/E 24.9x (blended: static sector reference 20x + trailing (TTM) 36x), scenarios: 20.8x / 24.9x / 29.0x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 13x
Simple DDMGrowthno
Two-Stage DDMGrowthno
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$77.643.36xyesBV/sh $38.94, ROE (TTM) 18.4%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$108.292.41xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$252.631.03xyesRev $12.7B, growth 5% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.6x / 1.9x / 2.2x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$200.901.30xyesEPS $7.04, growth 29% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=1.27 (Fair)
Margin TrajectoryGrowthno
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$98.412.65xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $1.02B × (1−25%) / WACC 8.9% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$107.012.44xyesBV $38.94 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 18.4% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$78.543.32xyes√(22.5 × EPS $7.04 × BVPS $38.94) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelativenoEBITDA $1.67B × sector EV/EBITDA 13.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$114.442.28xyesFCF $1099.7M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$106.182.46xyesSBC-adj FCF $1.03B (FCF $1.10B − SBC $0.07B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$227.161.15xyesEPS $7.04 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$17.6814.76xyesBV $38.94 × (ROIC 4.0% / WACC 8.9%)
P/Sales SectorRelativenoRevenue $12.70B × sector P/S 2.0x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$264.000.99xyesEPS $7.04 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$76.113.43xyesEPS $7.04 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelativeno
Clinical Phase NPVGrowthno
MertonAssetno
V5 Mechanicalno

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

UnitRoleValuation basisRevenueReported profitValue evidenceStatus
Intermodal (JBI)operatingenterprise$6.0b$450.0m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Dedicated Contract Services (DCS)operatingenterprise$3.4b$377.0m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Integrated Capacity Solutions (ICS)operatingenterprise$1.1b-$10.0m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Final Mile Services (FMS)operatingenterprise$824.0m$27.0m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Truckload (JBT)operatingenterprise$734.0m$21.0m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$1.1b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)1.60x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)1.19x
Interest coverage13.7x
Share count CAGR (buyback)-2.6%
Burning cashno

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

The eastern network is where this turned. For most of the past decade, intermodal meant moving boxes from a west coast port to a Chicago or Dallas ramp, a long haul where rail economics beat a truck comfortably. The eastern lanes are shorter, the rail advantage is thinner, and winning there means beating a truckload carrier on a route the truck should own. Eastern loads rose 16% in the second quarter against 5% on the transcontinental network, and total intermodal volume set a quarterly record of 578,072 loads. That is share taken from over the road, in the segment where taking it is hardest.

The financial result of that is visible in a single comparison. Revenue rose 19% to $3.50 billion while operating income rose 32% to $259.5 million and diluted earnings per share rose 45% to $1.91. Profit growing faster than revenue is what operating leverage looks like when a fixed asset base finally gets loaded. Management removed more than $135 million of structural cost over the past year, so the incremental load now drops through to profit against a lighter cost line than it met in the last upcycle.

Pricing is the part that matters most and it has only just turned. Intermodal revenue per load excluding fuel rose 1%, which sounds trivial and is not, because it came despite a mix shift toward the shorter eastern lanes that mechanically pulls the average down. Behind it, capacity is leaving the truckload market: management described safety-focused enforcement and broader supply pressure tightening available capacity, with some driver markets as tight as they have seen. Tight truckload capacity is the precondition for intermodal pricing power, because the intermodal rate is set relative to what a truck would charge.

The dedicated business is the ballast underneath all of it. Dedicated revenue rose 9% to $921 million with operating income also up 9% to $102.5 million, productivity per truck improved 9% a week, customer retention ran near 96%, and the sales pipeline reached record levels. The company sold 250 trucks in the quarter against a 1,000 to 1,200 target for the year. These are multi-year contracts with the truck, the driver and the maintenance bundled into a fixed monthly charge, which is why the segment kept earning through three years of freight recession while the spot-exposed businesses did not.

Even the problem children improved. Brokerage revenue rose 49% to $388 million and the segment turned an operating profit of $1.7 million against a loss a year earlier, its first profitable quarter in fourteen. Truckload revenue rose 35% to $240 million on 14% more loads. Final mile shrank 6% to $198 million, and that one was deliberate: management walked away from roughly $90 million of unprofitable revenue rather than defend it.

Capital allocation has been consistent through the trough. Net capital spending in the first half ran $144.9 million against $399.1 million a year earlier, consolidated debt came down to $1.15 billion from $1.72 billion, and roughly 392,000 shares were retired for about $98 million with $791 million of authorisation left. The share count has fallen about 2.7% a year over the past four years. A cyclical business that shrinks its share count through the worst of its cycle is behaving the way owners want it to.

Bear Case

Everything in the bull case can be true and the shares can still be a poor bet, because the recovery is not the question. The question is how long it lasts. Today's quote assumes the current economics hold for about 8.1 years, and among companies that reached this level of performance, only about 19% kept it going anywhere near that long. The multiple attached to the business sits at the very top of its peer distribution, well beyond the upper quartile. This is a cyclical company being valued as though the cycle has been repealed.

Every standard frame lands below the quote, and not by a little. Value the equity on book plus profitability and the price sits about 3.49 times what those methods reach. Capitalise current earnings power with no growth and the price sits about 3.04 times where those methods land. Even the frames built for growth fall short: peer multiples at 1.51 times, and the cash-flow methods that project the business forward at 1.39 times. When no family reaches the price, the price is a bet beyond what any of the standard frames encode.

The fair rebuttal is that the trailing profit those frames capitalise is a trough number, gathered across quarters that included the tail of a three-year freight recession, and it is a good rebuttal. It is also incomplete. The second quarter's $259.5 million of operating income is the run rate the bull is extrapolating. Annualise it and the business still has to keep growing from there to justify what is being paid, in an industry where the last three peaks were each followed by a multi-year drawdown. Freight is not a business that grows through cycles. It oscillates.

The quality inside the quarter is more mixed than the headline suggests. Brokerage turned its first operating profit in fourteen quarters, and did it while gross margin compressed to 12.5% from 15.5% a year earlier as purchased transportation costs rose. Truckload grew revenue 35% and posted an operating loss of $1.3 million against a profit a year earlier, with gross profit down 12% on third-party capacity costs. Final mile operating income fell 30% to $5.6 million. The two segments genuinely earning are intermodal and dedicated; the other three are contributing volume and very little profit.

The tightening capacity that lifts intermodal pricing also raises what the company pays. Management acknowledged rising driver wage pressure, sign-on bonuses and targeted increases in select markets. A carrier buys drivers and sells freight; when both prices rise together, the spread is an open question rather than a given. And the pricing opportunity management is most confident about is the 2027 bid season, not this one. That is a long wait for a stock that has already been re-rated.

The cash generation looks better than it will. First-half net capital spending was $144.9 million against $399.1 million the year before. Container fleets, tractors and trailers wear out on a schedule that does not consult the income statement, and volume up 10% eventually needs equipment. Deferred capital spending is a loan from the future recorded as free cash flow today. Meanwhile cash on hand was $4.2 million at the end of June against $1.15 billion of borrowings. Operating income covers interest about 10.9 times over and net borrowings sit near 1.6 times a year of operating profit, so nothing here is fragile. It simply means the balance sheet provides no cushion of its own; the cushion is the cash flow, and the cash flow is cyclical.

Valuation

At $290.61 the market is not buying a recovery. It has bought one, and is now paying for its persistence. Work the quote backward and it embeds today's economics continuing for about 8.1 years. Set that against the record of companies that got to this level of performance: only about 19% held it that long. The assessment attached to that combination is elevated, meaning above what the fundamentals comfortably support, and the multiple the business carries sits at the very top of its peer group rather than in the middle of it.

The multiple needs a caveat before it can be read at all. The enterprise is valued near 35 times a year of operating profit, but that profit is measured across a trailing window still containing the back end of a long freight downturn, when the trailing operating margin was 6.9%. The second quarter alone produced $259.5 million of operating income on $3.50 billion of revenue. Annualised, that is a materially different denominator, and any reader taking the trailing multiple at face value is capitalising the trough. The honest version is that the business is expensive on what it has earned and merely demanding on what it is currently earning.

Even adjusting for that, the frames do not reach. The book-value-plus-profitability lens leaves the price about 3.49 times above where it lands; capitalised earnings power about 3.04 times; peer multiples 1.51 times; and the cash-flow methods that credit forward growth 1.39 times. That last number is the one that matters, because it is the only frame that already assumes the business gets better, and the price still sits half again above it. A pattern where no family reaches the quote is a specific statement: the price is not defended by any standard frame and rests entirely on duration, on the recovery lasting far longer than these lenses assume.

The segment mix explains why the standard frames struggle and why they are not obviously wrong. Intermodal is half of revenue, dedicated is 28%, brokerage 9%, final mile 7% and truckload 6%, and those five businesses sit in different peer cohorts entirely. Intermodal compares to Hub Group and Schneider; dedicated to Werner and Ryder; brokerage to C.H. Robinson, RXO and Landstar. Intermodal and dedicated produced $253.4 million of the quarter's $259.5 million of operating income between them. The consolidated multiple therefore prices three low-margin, competitively exposed businesses on the strength of two good ones.

Solvency neither supports nor threatens the price, which is unusual and worth stating plainly. Cash on hand was $4.2 million at the end of June against $1.15 billion of consolidated debt, down from $1.72 billion a year earlier. Net borrowings run near 1.6 times a year of operating profit with interest covered about 10.9 times over, and the share count has come down roughly 2.7% a year across the past four years. A carrier operating on essentially no cash balance is ordinary in this industry, and it does mean the downside is bounded by cash generation rather than by the balance sheet. What the buyer is left holding is a well-run cyclical asset, priced as though the next several years look like this one.

Catalysts

The second quarter has already landed. Results published on July 15, 2026 showed revenue of $3.50 billion, up 19%, operating income of $259.5 million, up 32%, and diluted earnings per share of $1.91 against $1.31 a year earlier. The shares reached a 52-week high in the days that followed. That means the next scheduled information event is the third-quarter print in mid-October, and the immediate question is whether the intermodal volume record of 578,072 loads repeats against a tougher comparison.

The pricing timetable is the item that most changes the arithmetic, and management has been specific about when it arrives. Intermodal contracts are renegotiated in an annual bid cycle, and executives pointed to the 2027 season rather than the current one as the meaningful opportunity, citing spreads between intermodal and truckload rates that remain wider than normal. Revenue per load excluding fuel rose 1% this quarter. Whether that inflection continues through the back half is the leading indicator for the 2027 negotiation.

Two internal items are worth tracking alongside the freight data. Dedicated truck sales ran 250 in the quarter against a 1,000 to 1,200 target for the year, so the second half carries most of that plan and the sales cycle runs twelve to eighteen months from pipeline to revenue. And capital spending has been running well below the prior year, $144.9 million net in the first half against $399.1 million. A guided step-up in equipment spending would confirm management expects the volume to persist; a continued deferral would say something else. Roughly $791 million of buyback authorisation remains, and the pace of its use is the other live signal.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Intermodal (JBI) (reported)

Dedicated Contract Services (DCS) (reported)

Integrated Capacity Solutions (ICS) (reported)

Final Mile Services (FMS) (reported)

Truckload (JBT) (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

J.B. Hunt Q2 2026 earnings release and earnings call · J.B. Hunt Q2 2026 earnings call · J.B. Hunt Q2 2026 earnings release · market reports, July 17, 2026

View the full interactive JBHT report on boothcheck