Trucking Stocks KNX and JBHT Outpace Mega-Cap Tech in 2025
A supply squeeze, not a demand surge, is why freight rates are screaming higher, and why the stocks are running
Ticker Ratings
Forget the Magnificent 7 for a second. The best-performing corner of the market over the past year has been the least glamorous one: a bunch of 18-wheelers. $KNX (Knight-Swift) and $JBHT (J.B. Hunt) outperformed even mega-cap tech in 2025, and the reason is a classic setup, a three-year supply purge that left the market structurally short on capacity right as freight demand quietly crept back.
According to Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast, the trucking market is rebounding after a brutal post-Covid lull that wiped out thousands of small carriers. Van rates have risen significantly, but here's the twist: this isn't a demand story. Shippers haven't suddenly gone crazy ordering more stuff. Instead, the supply side collapsed. Small immigrant-owned fleets, which historically ran lean and undercut rates, are being structurally removed from the market by two regulatory moves, crackdowns on non-domiciled CDLs and new English language proficiency requirements pushed through under DOT Secretary Sean Duffy. That's not a blip. That's a structural shift.
The bull case for $KNX and $JBHT is simple: fewer trucks, same freight, higher rates. Large carriers with established compliance infrastructure are the direct beneficiaries of rules that squeeze out the grey-market operators who undercut them for a decade. Pricing power is coming back to the big guys, and margins follow.
The bear case, though, deserves airtime. A lot of the positive move is already priced in. Both stocks ran hard in 2025, and if demand growth doesn't materialize alongside the supply squeeze, pricing gains could stall. Cyclical trucking stocks historically mean-revert hard when the freight cycle turns. And with the US budget deficit hitting a staggering $432 billion in July 2026 alone, already past the full-year 2025 figure, a consumer slowdown that hits freight volumes isn't a crazy scenario.
What to watch: rate data from the spot market, any reversal in regulatory enforcement, and whether shippers start locking in longer-term contracts. When big shippers start signing multi-year deals, that's the signal the carriers have real leverage, and the institutional money will follow.
The freight market doesn't tweet and doesn't have a viral product launch. It just moves everything everyone actually needs, and right now it's charging more to do it.