Freight delivery company Heartland Express (NASDAQ: HTLD) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q4 CY2025, with sales falling 26.1% year on year to $179.4 million. Its non-GAAP loss of $0.06 per share was 25.3% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Heartland Express Chief Executive Officer, Mike Gerdin, commented on the quarterly operating results and ongoing initiatives of the Company, "Our consolidated operating results for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2025, reflect sequential improvement in operations as a direct result of the hard work and discipline of our team and our professional drivers during the most recent quarter and the full year of 2025. While a trade name impairment recorded during the fourth quarter caused operating ratio to deteriorate between the third and fourth quarters of 2025, Non-GAAP adjusted operating ratio(1) sequentially improved through each quarterly period of 2025. Operating ratios throughout 2025 consisted of the following - 106.8% (107.1% adjusted operating ratio(1)) in Q1 2025, 105.9% (106.0% adjusted operating ratio(1)) in Q2 2025, 103.7% (103.5% adjusted operating ratio(1)) in Q3 2025, and 112.7% (101.6% adjusted operating ratio(1)) in Q4 2025. We believe the investments made to improve our internal processes and systems along with the strategic decision to consolidate our two largest operating fleets of drivers into Heartland Express at the end of 2025, have and will continue to allow us to improve our operating results. Further, we believe that this gives us the best probability for success and allows us to better capitalize on potential industry and market improvements in 2026. We believe we are seeing positive signs across the landscape of the transportation industry to reduce excess capacity through both regulatory enforcement and more abrupt exits of capacity. We do not believe that there will be meaningful improvement until some months later in 2026. We are however seeing early trends of positive shifts in customer volume, certain rates, and increasing customer expectations which are a positive change from the last three years of operation. We also point to our operating cash flows, our ability to repurchase shares of our common stock, and our ability to aggressively pay down debt even during a period of prolonged freight weakness in the truckload industry.

Company Overview

Founded by the son of a trucker, Heartland Express (NASDAQ: HTLD) offers full-truckload deliveries across the United States and Mexico.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but many enduring ones grow for years. Unfortunately, Heartland Express’s 4.5% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was tepid. This fell short of our benchmark for the industrials sector and is a tough starting point for our analysis.

We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss cycles, industry trends, or a company capitalizing on catalysts such as a new contract win or a successful product line. Heartland Express’s performance shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 18.3% annually.

This quarter, Heartland Express missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 26.1% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $179.4 million of revenue.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to decline by 3.7% over the next 12 months. While this projection is better than its two-year trend, it’s tough to feel optimistic about a company facing demand difficulties.

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Operating Margin

Operating margin is an important measure of profitability as it shows the portion of revenue left after accounting for all core expenses – everything from the cost of goods sold to advertising and wages. It’s also useful for comparing profitability across companies with different levels of debt and tax rates because it excludes interest and taxes.

Heartland Express was profitable over the last five years but held back by its large cost base. Its average operating margin of 5.6% was weak for an industrials business.

Analyzing the trend in its profitability, Heartland Express’s operating margin decreased by 24.5 percentage points over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability. Heartland Express’s performance was poor no matter how you look at it - it shows that costs were rising and it couldn’t pass them onto its customers.

In Q4, Heartland Express generated an operating margin profit margin of negative 12.7%, down 13.2 percentage points year on year. The contraction shows it was less efficient because its expenses increased relative to its revenue.

Earnings Per Share

We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.

Sadly for Heartland Express, its EPS declined by 20.7% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 4.5%. This tells us the company became less profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded due to non-fundamental factors such as interest expenses and taxes.

Diving into the nuances of Heartland Express’s earnings can give us a better understanding of its performance. As we mentioned earlier, Heartland Express’s operating margin declined by 24.5 percentage points over the last five years. This was the most relevant factor (aside from the revenue impact) behind its lower earnings; interest expenses and taxes can also affect EPS but don’t tell us as much about a company’s fundamentals.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a shorter period to see if we are missing a change in the business.

For Heartland Express, its two-year annual EPS declines of 117% show it’s continued to underperform. These results were bad no matter how you slice the data.

In Q4, Heartland Express reported adjusted EPS of negative $0.06, down from negative $0.02 in the same quarter last year. Despite falling year on year, this print easily cleared analysts’ estimates. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Heartland Express to improve its earnings losses. Analysts forecast its full-year EPS of negative $0.49 will advance to negative $0.14.

Key Takeaways from Heartland Express’s Q4 Results

It was good to see Heartland Express beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its revenue missed and its EBITDA fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this quarter could have been better. The stock remained flat at $11.10 immediately following the results.

Should you buy the stock or not? When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).