Why 2019 was a 'bloodbath' for the $800 billion trucking industry - Business Insider

Trucking did not flourish in 2019. In fact, truck drivers like Lexington, Kentucky-based Chad Boblett told Business Insider that it is a “bloodbath” for small fleets. Larger companies like Old Dominion and C.H. Robinson struggled, too. There are myriad reasons for the trucker slowdown. Much of the “bloodbath” can be traced back to the industry's highly cyclical nature.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Lawrence Sawyer owns a trucking business in Las Vegas. And while 2018 was a great year for him — and the rest of the trucking industry — he's seen his earnings plummet this year. “The spot rates are very low, fuel prices are very high,” he told Business Insider. “I may have to close my doors in 2020 if nothing changes in the near future.”His company of four trucks grossed $869,000 in 2018. This year, that plunged to $359,000.Sawyer's story isn't unique. Hundreds of truck drivers — small business owners as well as company drivers — saw their take-home pay plunge this year. In fact, truck drivers like Lexington, Kentucky-based Chad Boblett have told Business Insider that it's a “bloodbath.”It's not just small businesses that struggled. Major trucking companies consistently missed and revised their earnings targets this year. Knight-Swift and Schneider have both slashed their 2019 earnings guidances for three quarters in a row. Old Dominion saw its first quarterly dip in revenue since 2016. (Others, like J.B. Hunt and UPS, outperformed market expectations.)Third-quarter earnings from truck brokerage giant C.H. Robinson were so bad that the company saw its largest intraday plunge in shares since July 2008 — 15%. Its year-over-year income from operations decreased 18.2% that quarter.Read more: 'Bad from every angle': America's trucking recession is now slamming one of the $800 billion industry's largest companiesIn the first half of 2019, around 640 trucking companies went bankrupt, according to industry data from Broughton Capital LLC. That's more than triple the amount of bankruptcies from the same period last year — 175. There isn't one clean explanation for why a slowdown hit the $800 billion trucking industry. But analysts and truck drivers pointed to a few reasons it's on shaky ground in 2019.