Piper Jaffray Reiterates Overweight On JB Hunt After Earnings Miss (JBHT)

Piper Jaffray is reiterating its Overweight rating and $42 price target on J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. JBHT, despite the company missing earnings estimates last night. In the research note, Piper Jaffray writes, "Yesterday after the market JBHT reported 3Q10 continuing EPS of $0.43 (40.4% y-o-y growth) which was a penny below Consensus $0.44 and $0.03 below our high end $0.46 estimate. Downside versus our estimate – a penny each – resulted from (1) modestly lower revenue, (2) slightly less operating profitability, and (3) a higher share count. We believe a portion of lower profitability was due to some near term cost headwinds for growth as assets were shifted into Intermodal and new Dedicated contracts incurred start up costs / lower utilization. We believe core Intermodal demand remains very strong into October and JBHT is continuing to add assets." Shares of JBHT lost 43 cents yesterday to close at $35.51, a loss of 1.2%.