Posts

Analyzing Fuel Costs (and Revenues) at Trucking Companies

Image
  Third-quarter earnings will start arriving in mid-October, and one issue on analysts’ minds is likely to be fuel costs — which, as anyone who has visited a gas station recently already knows,  have been rising painfully all summer long.  Trucking and transportation businesses will be among those firms likely to report slower growth, higher costs, or both as a result of increasing fuel costs. For example, just last week J.B. Hunt Transport ($JBHT) warned analysts that Q3 earnings will be 5 to 10 percent below expectation s amid ““some of the most radical and abnormal swings” in fuel costs that the company has ever seen. Calcbench can help analysts understand the effect of those costs (and how companies are trying to stay ahead of that pressure) because many companies in trucking, transportation, and related sectors disclose what they’re paying for fuel, plus any surcharges they’re imposing to pass along those costs to customers. Finding those disclosures is a breeze with...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Value of Pay-Versus-Performance Data

Image
Today we interrupt our usual attention to corporate earnings data to call out another type of disclosure that institutional investors might also find useful: the pay versus performance data one can use to evaluate CEO compensation. Companies have been making these disclosures since last year, and the information is readily available in Calcbench through our Disclosures & Footnotes Query page . Look for the “Related Documents” menu on the left side of the screen, open it, and you’ll see an option for “Pay Versus Performance” at the bottom. Click on that choice, and the compensation disclosures will appear for whatever company you’re researching. Figure 1, below, shows the pay disclosures for Walmart ($WMT).  We had a d etailed post on how to find pay-versus-performance disclosures last year, so we won’t rehash all that material now. Instead, we want to highlight some interesting research to show why “PvP” disclosures can be so useful to institutional investors. Because, accord...
Post a Comment
Read more

Building Earnings Quality Measures with Calcbench Data

Earnings quality — the question of how closely a company’s reported profit tracks the actual cash moving through the business — is one of the oldest and most durable ideas in fundamental analysis. When earnings run consistently ahead of cash flow, it’s usually a signal worth investigating further; when the two move together, it’s generally reassuring. With standardized financial data available through the Calcbench API, the Multi-Company page, or the Excel Add-in, you can construct earnings-quality screens ranging from straightforward to fairly sophisticated — and apply them across the entire market at once! To illustrate that range, we built two versions ourselves. Two ways to measure the same idea. The simple version: cash flow relative to net income. Divide operating cash flow by net income for a given period, and you have a quick, intuitive gut-check. A ratio near 1 is good and normal; a ratio well above or below 1 is worth a second look.  This ratio is also easy to explain a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Update: 133 firms and $20.3B in Tariff Refunds

Since our last update, we've added 28 companies to the list, though most of that reflects catching up on research into filings from July and early August rather than new activity. Companies that actually reported in the last week or so include American Eagle Outfitters ($179M), Academy Sports and Outdoors ($83.7M, via a Participation Agreement that pre-sold a portion of its claim to a third-party buyer), Caleres ($55.6M), Destination XL Group ($4.6M), J.Jill ($18.4M), Lovesac ($20.3M), ChargePoint Holdings ($6.1M), and Petco ($6.8M). The total has grown from $19.3 billion across 105 companies to approximately $20.3 billion across 133 companies. Companies with a quantified IEEPA tariff refund figure identified by Calcbench as of September 10, 2026, listed alphabetically. Total: approximately $20.3 billion. See the main analysis for methodology, sourcing, and the largest recoveries by dollar amount. Company Ticker Refund Amount ...
Post a Comment
Read more