Freight delivery company Knight-Swift Transportation (NYSE: KNX) reported Q2 CY2026 results exceeding the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 12.6% year on year to $2.10 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.63 per share was 22.5% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Company Overview

Covering 1.6 billion loaded miles in 2023 alone, Knight-Swift Transportation (NYSE: KNX) offers less-than-truckload and full truckload delivery services.

Revenue Growth

Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years. Luckily, Knight-Swift Transportation’s sales grew at a decent 9% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. Its growth was slightly above the average industrials company and shows its offerings resonate with customers.

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. Knight-Swift Transportation’s recent performance shows its demand has slowed as its revenue was flat over the last two years.

This quarter, Knight-Swift Transportation reported year-on-year revenue growth of 12.6%, and its $2.10 billion of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 2%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 9.8% over the next 12 months, an improvement versus the last two years. This projection is admirable and indicates its newer products and services will catalyze better top-line performance.

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Operating Margin

Knight-Swift Transportation was profitable over the last five years but held back by its large cost base. Its average operating margin of 7.2% was weak for an industrials business. This result isn’t too surprising given its low gross margin as a starting point.

Looking at the trend in its profitability, Knight-Swift Transportation’s operating margin decreased by 14.3 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. Knight-Swift Transportation’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 Q2, Knight-Swift Transportation generated an operating margin profit margin of 5%, up 1.1 percentage points year on year. Since its gross margin expanded more than its operating margin, we can infer that leverage on its cost of sales was the primary driver behind the recently higher efficiency.

Earnings Per Share

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth — for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

Sadly for Knight-Swift Transportation, its EPS declined by 17.5% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 9%. 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.

We can take a deeper look into Knight-Swift Transportation’s earnings to better understand the drivers of its performance. As we mentioned earlier, Knight-Swift Transportation’s operating margin expanded this quarter but declined by 14.3 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 more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For Knight-Swift Transportation, its two-year annual EPS growth of 25.3% was higher than its five-year trend. This acceleration made it one of the faster-growing industrials companies in recent history.

In Q2, Knight-Swift Transportation reported adjusted EPS of $0.63, up from $0.35 in the same quarter last year. This print easily cleared analysts’ estimates, and shareholders should be content with the results. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Knight-Swift Transportation’s full-year EPS to grow 133% from $1.35 to $3.14.

Key Takeaways from Knight-Swift Transportation’s Q2 Results

It was good to see Knight-Swift Transportation beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also glad its revenue outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. Zooming out, we think this was a solid print. Investors were likely hoping for more, and shares traded down 1.1% to $75.16 immediately following the results.

So do we think Knight-Swift Transportation is an attractive buy at the current price? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).