News Briefs - Aug. 12
The Latest Headlines:
- EGL’s Profits Rise on North American Ground Activity
- Trailer Bridge Narrows Loss
- UPS, FedEx Charging Extra for Remote Deliveries
- Global Economies Appear to be Picking Up
- Price of Crude Oil Falls in New York
- Trailer Bridge Narrows Loss
EGL’s Profits Rise on North American Ground Activity
EGL Inc. said Tuesday its second-quarter net income was $6.5 million or 14 cents per share, compared with $938,000 or 2 cents per share in the year-ago period.The Houston-based company, which operates under the name EGL Eagle Global Logistics, said its gross revenues improved 16% on continued growth of North America ground activity and strong air and ocean volumes outside North America.
EGL said it expected earnings for the third quarter to be between 18-20 cents per share and earnings of 65-75 cents for the full fiscal year. Transport Topics
Trailer Bridge Narrows Loss
Trailer Bridge Inc., which provides trucking and marine freight services, said Tuesday that its net loss for the second quarter was $835,470 or 9 cents per share, compared with a loss of $1.1 million or 12 cents a year ago.Total revenue for the quarter was $21.7 million, an increase of 19.8% over last year and 14.3% compared with the first quarter of 2003.
The company said it had experienced a significant increase in volume since early March. Transport Topics
UPS, FedEx Charging Extra for Remote Deliveries
United Parcel Service, FedEx Corp. and Airborne Inc. are charging an extra fee for packages sent toome areas located close to major cities, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The delivery area surcharge, which jumped 17% this year to $1.75, is applied to locations far from a company's dispatch facility or the site of few deliveries.
The three delivery companies now impose such fees on shipments to more than 60% of all U.S. zip codes, the Journal said.
UPS is ranked No. 1 and FedEx No. 2 on the 2003 Transport Topics 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian trucking companies. Transport Topics
Global Economies Appear to be Picking Up
As evidence mounts that the U.S. economy is gathering momentum, there are some signs that the global economy is beginning to perk up as well, the Wall Street Journal reported.Trucking would benefit from increased global economic activity.
n Germany, business confidence has risen for three consecutive months, and executives are also feeling more optimistic in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, the article said.
China has emerged from the SARS health crisis and consumers are aggressively buying cars and homes, while Japan’s gross domestic product expanded at a stronger-than-expected 2.3% annualized rate during the second quarter.
And although nearly two years of recovery pronouncements have proved too optimistic this time global stock prices are working in favor of recovery, the Journal said. Transport Topics
Price of Crude Oil Falls in New York
The price of crude oil declined for a third straight day on Tuesday on expectations that imports are keeping refiners well supplied, Bloomberg reported.Crude is distilled down to motor fuels like diesel and gasoline, both of which are used to power the trucking industry.
Crude oil for September delivery was down 61 cents at $31.40 a barrel as of 10:41 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil is up 13% from a year ago.
U.S. inventories probably fell 107,000 barrels from 280.2 million barrels in the week ended Friday, Bloomberg said. That would be smaller than the 7.2 million-barrel drop in the year-earlier week, narrowing a deficit that had widened this year because of supply disruptions from Iraq, Venezuela and Nigeria. Transport Topics
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