Covenant Logistics Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Paul Bunn: Yes, it’s tough to peg it off January but that’s in the range of reasonableness. I mean here’s what we did. You said October was a stout month, no peak, November, December, definitely pulled back. But I mean, Chip talked about the interest we had $0.23 a mile insurance. We’re hopeful we don’t run $0.23 a mile insurance. And so I would tell you that, again, no doubt things are soft out there, but we are — our cost structure for the first quarter is going to look better than our cost structure in the fourth quarter. So revenue won’t be as robust, but our cost structure will be better.

Jack Atkins: Okay. Okay, that’s helpful. And I guess maybe kind of I’d be curious to get your take on what your customers are telling you about maybe the — the trends within their business and sort of how they’re thinking about their inventory levels. I mean, do you think that we can get back to maybe normal levels of replenishment, normal ordering levels in the second quarter? Or do you think that’s maybe something that we’ll need to see in the second half of the year? Just sort of what are your customers telling you about the direction of their business?

David Parker: Jack, this is David. Yes, there are 4 bullet points that I would say is that I really believe that first second quarter from an economic standpoint are going to be negative GDP. That’s what I believe. I believe that as it relates to transportation, I think that we hit the bottom around Thanksgiving, and I think that we have just been there. That’s where it’s been. We’ve not seen a second downward trough going down below kind of Thanksgiving. And we have since that all in the month of January as well. So I’m optimistic that the industry and us are down on the bottom level there. And as I think look at it in the second quarter, even the first and second quarter or negative GDP — when they start buying more Coca-Colas and it gets warm in May and it gets warm in the end of April and hot dogs and all those kind of things, freight is going to pick up even if it’s a negative GDP growth.

And so I believe that that will be a tailwind for the industry. I also believe that it will be about a second quarter event when the inventory levels are corrected. And as soon as that happens, that in itself will be a tailwind for the industry because right now, that’s what a lot of our customers are doing and are correcting their inventory levels. And so we’re just having to muddle through it. And — but I’m optimistic that the pipeline is good. I mean better than you would think it would be in the month of January, I’m optimistic about that. I think that we’ve got — I’m optimistic about what I’ve seen from the rate levels thus far, the pressure of reduction that it’s only been 3 or 4 accounts. We’re not talking about across the board. Everybody has brother beaten us up.