Landstar System - Q3 2019
October 24, 2019
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning, and welcome to Landstar System, Incorporation's Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Release Conference Call. All lines will be in a listen-only mode until the formal question-and-answer session. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Joining us today from Landstar are Jim Gattoni, President and CEO, Kevin Stout, Vice President and CFO, Rob Brasher, Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Joe Beacom, Vice President and Chief Safety and Operations Officer. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Jim Gattoni. Sir, you may begin.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Thank you, Eunice. Good morning, and welcome to Landstar's 2019 third quarter earnings conference call. Before we begin, let me read the following statement. The following is a safe harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements made during this conference call that are not based on historical facts are forward-looking statements. During this conference call, we may make statements that contain forward-looking information that relates to Landstar's business objectives, plans, strategies, and expectations. Such information is by nature subject to uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, the operational, financial, and legal risks detailed on Landstar's Form 10-K for the 2018 fiscal year, described in the section Risk Factors and other SEC filings from time to time.
These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results or events to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated. Investors should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information, and Landstar undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information. During the first 9 months of 2019, both truckload volume and revenue per load on loads hauled via truck were impacted by softening conditions in the spot market. As we discussed on our 2019 second quarter earnings conference call on July 25, year-over-year growth in both revenue per load and the number of loads hauled via truck began to decelerate during the 2018 fourth quarter.
These trends continued into 2019, with revenue per load beginning to decrease on a year-over-year basis in January, and the number of loads hauled via truck beginning to decrease on a year-over-year basis in April. We believe this softening has been due to slowing U.S. manufacturing and increased available truck capacity. Also, as we anticipated at the beginning of the year, Landstar's exceptional financial results during 2018 have made for very difficult year-over-year comparisons. During our 2019 second quarter earnings conference call, we provided revenue guidance of $1.01 billion-$1.06 billion, or 12%-16% below the 2018 third quarter. 2019 third quarter revenue was $1.012 billion, or 16% below the 2018 third quarter.
We also provided diluted earnings per share guidance of $1.48-$1.54, or 6%-9% below the 2018 third quarter. 2019 third quarter diluted earnings per share was $1.35, or 17% below the 2018 third quarter. On September 11, we announced in a Form 8-K filed to the SEC that we were more comfortable at the low end of our third quarter revenue guidance, and we expected to be below the low end of our earnings per share guidance provided on July 24. Our update to revenue guidance in early September stated that truck revenue per load and number of loads hauled via truck through the first two fiscal months of the quarter were trending at the lower end of our revenue guidance.
Our update to diluted earnings per share guidance reflected lower than anticipated truck volumes, attributable to softer overall market conditions and the impact of a tragic highway accident that involved the Landstar BCO in early September. Through the first half of 2019, I believe we were in a relatively healthy freight environment. The first half of 2019 was by far Landstar's second-best January through June performance in the company's history, second only to the first half of 2018. More recently, though, weaker economic conditions, especially in the US manufacturing sector, appear to have led to seasonal softness in Landstar's truck volumes. We experienced this softness, particularly in September and into the first several weeks of October.
On a comparative month-over-prior year month basis, truck volume was 4%, 3%, and 6% below July, August, and September of 2018. As it relates to the 2019 third quarter, the 5% decrease in load volume compared to prior year was mostly driven by decreased load volumes in the automotive, foodstuffs, and metal sectors, partly offset by an increase in consumer durable loadings. Automotive load count fell approximately 14% compared to the 2018 third quarter. We attribute this to a decision by the company to cease providing service on certain unprofitable lanes, and more recently, and to a lesser extent, the strike at General Motors and lower U.S. automotive production.
Foodstuff load count decreased approximately 29%, almost entirely due to one customer, who in prior year awarded Landstar significant volumes due to unique one-time issues that have now been resolved by that customer. The decrease in truck volumes in the metal sector was approximately 16%, due mostly to overall softness in that sector. On a more positive note, although revenue at the consumer durable sector was down approximately 11%, volume was above the prior year quarter by 3%. Although the current macro environment makes long-term trends somewhat unpredictable in the near term, we expect the more recent pricing trend to continue through the fourth quarter. Dispatched truckload volume in the first weeks of October, compared to the same period of 2018, is trending somewhat below the volume variance we experienced in September.
We expect the seasonal softness in truckload volumes to continue through the remainder of the year. Overall, 2019 third quarter truck revenue per load was 13% lower than in the 2018 third quarter. On a monthly basis, revenue per load on loads hauled via truck was 14%, 14%, and 11% lower in July, August, and September of 2019, compared to each corresponding month of 2018... The decreasing shortfall the prior year was due to less difficult year-over-year comparisons as we moved through the quarter, rather than an uptick in rates. On a sequential month-to-month basis, beginning in the middle of the second quarter and continuing through September, truck revenue per load fluctuated at rates somewhat consistent with historical seasonal patterns.
Based on recent October trends that continue to show seasonal softness, we expect truck loadings in the 2019 fourth quarter to be lower than the 2018 fourth quarter in an upper single-digit % range. We expect revenue per load in the 2019 fourth quarter to be below the 2018 fourth quarter in a high single-digit % range. This would represent an improvement from the 13% decrease we experienced from 2018 third quarter to the 2019 third quarter, mostly due to easier year-over-year comparisons in the fourth quarter. Based on those expectations, I anticipate revenue in the 2019 fourth quarter to be in a range of $970 million to $1.02 billion. Assuming that estimate range of revenue, I anticipate diluted earnings per share for the 2019 fourth quarter to be in a range of $1.40-$1.46.
We knew we'd be facing difficult year-over-year comparisons in 2019 due to the exceptional freight environment and extraordinary financial results of the company in 2018. Although recent truck volume trends have shown seasonal softness, 2019 continues to deliver the second-best financial performance in the company's history, behind only 2018. To put our 2019 third quarter results in historical perspective, gross profit in the 2019 third quarter was $19 million lower than during the 2018 third quarter. Yet 2019 third quarter gross profit exceeded the 2017 third quarter, previously the second-highest third quarter gross profit in the company's history, by $13 million or 9%. 2019 third quarter operating was $70.6 million, also far exceeding any other third quarter in the company's history, other than the 2018 third quarter.
Diluted earnings per share in the 2019 third quarter of $1.35 was the highest diluted earnings per share of any third quarter in Landstar history, other than the 2018 third quarter. Similarly, revenue, gross profit, operating income, net income, and diluted earnings, diluted earnings per share for the nine months ended 2019, each significantly exceeded the amounts less achieved during the first nine months of 2017, previous to the second-best year in Landstar history. In particular, operating income in the first nine months of 2019 exceeded that of 2017 by 34%. In the context of this longer-term perspective, I believe the company's light-asset, variable-cost business model is performing relatively well in the current environment. We're also well known for returning capital to our stockholders through a combination of stock buybacks and dividends.
It is our intent to continue with our historical approach to buy back stock on the open market on an opportunistic basis. Landstar remains focused on profitable load volume growth and increasing capacity to haul those loads. With our ongoing efforts to invest in and empower our network of small business owners, along with our healthy balance sheet, Landstar continues to be confident in our positioning within the transportation and logistics marketplace. Here's Kevin to provide additional commentary on the third quarter financials.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Thanks, Jim. Jim has covered certain information on our 2019 third quarter, so I will cover various other third quarter financial information included in the press release. Gross profit, defined as revenue less the cost of purchased transportation and commissions to agents, decreased 11% to $153 million, and represented 15.1% of revenue in the 2019 third quarter, compared to $171.3 million, or 14.3% of revenue in 2018. The cost of purchased transportation was 76.6% of revenue in the 2019 quarter versus 77.5% in 2018. The decrease in purchased transportation as a percent of revenue was primarily due to a decrease in the rate paid to truck brokerage carriers and an increase in the percentage of revenue contributed by BCO independent contractors.
The rate paid to truck brokerage carriers in the 2019 third quarter was 116 basis points lower than the rate paid in the 2018 third quarter. Commissions to agents was 8.4% of revenue in the 2019 third quarter versus 8.3% in 2018 due to an increased net revenue margin, revenue less the cost of purchased transportation divided by revenue, on loads hauled by truck brokerage carriers. Other operating costs were $10.4 million in the 2019 third quarter, compared to $9 million in 2018. This increase was primarily due to increased trailing equipment costs and increased contractor bad debt. Insurance and claims costs were $24 million in the 2019 third quarter, compared to $18.8 million in 2018.
Total insurance and claims costs for the 2019 quarter were 5.1% of BCO revenue, compared to 3.6% in 2018. The increase in insurance and claims, as compared to 2018, was due to the adverse impact of a tragic accident involving Landstar that occurred during the 2019 third quarter and unfavorable development of prior year claims in 2019. Unfavorable development of prior year claims was $3.4 million and $6.6 million in the 2018 and 2019 third quarters, respectively. Selling, general, and administrative costs were $38.2 million in the 2019 third quarter, compared to $46.7 million in 2018. The decrease in SG&A costs was attributable to a decrease in the provision for bonuses under the company's incentive compensation plans and decreased stock compensation expense, partially offset by increased provision for customer bad debt.
Stock compensation expense was $1.1 million and $4.9 million in the 2019 and 2018 third quarters, respectively, mostly due to the impact of decreased earnings on our variable cost equity compensation arrangements. The company's accrual for incentive compensation was reduced by $300,000 in the 2019 third quarter, compared to an expense of $5.2 million in the 2018 third quarter. Quarterly SG&A expense as a percent of gross profit decreased from 27.3% in the prior year to 25% in 2019. Depreciation and amortization was $10.7 million in the 2019 third quarter, compared to $10.8 million in 2018. Operating income was $70.6 million, or 46.3% of gross profit in the 2019 quarter versus $87.1 million, or 50.8% of gross profit in 2018. Operating income decreased 19% year-over-year.
The effective income tax rate was 23.8% in the 2019 third quarter, compared to 22.4% in 2018. The effective income tax rate was favorably impacted in both periods by excess tax benefits recognized on stock compensation arrangements. Looking at our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with cash and short-term investments of $316 million. Year-to-date cash flow from operations for 2019 was $261 million, and cash capital expenditures were $15 million. During the 2019 third quarter, the company purchased approximately 175,000 shares of its common stock at an aggregate cost of approximately $19 million. There are currently 1,151,000 shares available for purchase under the company's stock purchase program. Back to you, Jim.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
All right, Kevin. With that, Eunice, we will open the questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you very much, sir. At this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. To cancel your request, please press star two. Our first question came from the line of Jack Atkins of Stephens. Your line is now open.
Jack Atkins (Research Analyst)
Good morning, Jim, Kevin, Rob, Joe.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, morning.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Good morning, Jack.
Jack Atkins (Research Analyst)
I guess to start, Jim, you know, with load count deteriorating, you know, in October versus what you saw in the third quarter, you know, what do you make of that? I mean, is that a function of PMI deteriorating? You know, when we think about what we saw in September with that reading, or are you seeing a step down in the broader economy? We'd just be curious to get your feel for that. And then I have a follow-up question, you know, around the impact of those customer losses and how that's impacting load count, I guess, as we look into October.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, Look, we, you know how diversified our customer base is, and typically, we don't even talk about sectors. But this time, I think clearly there were some sectors that we saw some load volume decreases through the quarter that otherwise we may not have spoke of. So that's why we spoke specific to some of those sectors. But, you know, like I said, we're highly diversified, so when manufacturing turned negative, and you saw it, negative growth in July, August, and then followed into September, you attribute most of our load volume to that, and then some of the specific steps as it relate to the sectors that we mentioned.
But you know where our, you know where our, our volumes come from, and it's really the manufacturing sector in the U.S., driving the general, drop-off in our volumes. And the, the increase in the trend in October is, is, is just a continuation of the softness I think we saw from, August into September, because that was sequentially a little softer, and it just carried into October to drive that into more of a higher single digit drop-off than the, where—'cause where we're running at a 6% in September, you know, we're looking 7%-8% now as we rolled into October. And that, that small percentage increase is hard to really put our hands around it, but it's, it's just continuation of seasonal softness.
Jack Atkins (Research Analyst)
Okay, gotcha. And then when you think about those, those specific customer losses, whether it was the automotive customers that sounds like you guys walked away from, or the foodstuff customer that sort of changed their supply chain, is there any way to think about how that's impacting load count on a year-over-year basis?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, on the foodstuff side, we give the revenue percentage in that presentation, but the 29%, that was just that one customer, and I think that rolls off fourth quarter or maybe first quarter next year. So that comp is better, let's just say first quarter 2020. You've got you know the automotive strike, which we can't quantify how much volume that really is because it's... You know, we're doing parts and stuff like that, so it doesn't necessarily have the GM name on it, but we're going in and out of plants. So, you know, I can't run my bill-to against GM. We got to try to identify all that.
So that's part of the GM strike, which, you know, I don't, I'm not sure how material it was, but if I were to guess, you're talking maybe 50 loads or something on a per-day basis. And then the other stuff is just, you know, automotive production, which we felt a little softness in. Metals was, or metals commodities, when you look at it, you know, the top 25 customers only makes up about 25%, so there's nothing specific to that one, other than softness there.
Jack Atkins (Research Analyst)
Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. One quick follow-up then, and I'll hand it over. But, you know, when I look at your active broker carrier count, it decreased sequentially, you know, as you move through this year. And so, Joe, I guess, as you're sort of, you know, talking to and you know, drivers and thinking about sort of what's happening on the capacity side of the market, are you starting to see some capacity leave the market on the fringes? I mean, should we sort of read that and interpret that as a sign of capacity attrition in the market? Just sort of curious what you're seeing on that front.
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Sure. Yeah, Jack, I tend to not think of it like that. I tend to think that, you know, with our load demand a little bit different than it was a year ago, a little bit lower, we're putting fewer loads out publicly to the public load boards, and that's and when you put fewer loads out, then you've got fewer carriers who maybe haven't hauled a load before that look to come and get qualified and haul that load. I just think that the need to reach out further and find the capacity that's there is less because demand is down. So I would attribute that both to our total count and our active count as well. We just haven't needed to reach into the marketplace as far.
I don't necessarily attribute that to an exodus, especially when you hear some of the conflicting information about the truck sales and that kind of thing. So, we don't see that there's really a lot of capacity that's exited the marketplace. I just think that our need and the way the model works, to grow that count, to satisfy our needs, hasn't been there.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, Jack, if you look at the quarter, you know, we were... You know, volume growth was, we were down 5% in volume. It was 9% on truck brokerage, but BCO was up 1%. So just the need to put the brokers on the loads is kind of softer now than it was a year ago.
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Yeah. Our active count, I think, Jack, went down like a, maybe, not even a third of a %, I think 134 carriers. So it's pretty... Our active count is staying pretty healthy. It's just, again, we're not needing to expand it, and as Jim, Jim pointed out, BCO load count growth is, is positive.
Jack Atkins (Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Thank you for the time, guys.
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Mehrotra of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director)
Thanks. Good morning, guys. How are you?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Morning.
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Good. Good.
Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director)
I just... Maybe the first question, I just wanted to talk about, if you could talk about, you know, the volumes related to, you know, your trailer drop and hook business. You know, I would imagine that you'd start getting some, uh, orders or requests for volumes ahead of kind of the busier season. Maybe we can read something from what you say on what the peak season's gonna look like on that particular piece of the business.
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Well, Amit, this is Joe. I mean, business on our trailers still runs in that low 30% of our overall truck loadings. We have seen a little bit of a softer request for trailers going into the peak season than we did a year ago. Not exactly a surprise. And what was the rest of your question?
Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director)
I'm just trying to understand, if you just isolate that 30%, I mean, is that 30% piece of the business, you know, is it up year-over-year? Are you getting more requests on that particular side of the business?
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
I would, I would not say we're getting more requests on the, like, the Drop and Hook spot trailer business in the quarter. No, I would say that's actually a little bit softer. Some of that could be a function of the automotive that Jim spoke of, as well. I, I would say that it's not what it was last year, but still formidable, and I think you see that in the BCO load count on the van side, which is flat year-over-year, and a lot of those BCOs on the van side are participating in the Drop and Hook business.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Actually, the drop and hook was up slightly on the number of loads hauled in the 2019 quarter over the 2018 quarter. 'Cause, like, the BCO business and the drop and hook holds a little more firm than your general ad hoc type business, so that's still doing relatively well.
Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director)
Okay. And then just one talking about, you know, I think you guys have talked about kind of dropping 70% of the incremental gross profit to the EBIT line. I'm just trying to understand, maybe Kevin can talk about this, but, you know, thinking about it the other way, you know, how should we think about, like, the decremental margins on the gross profit? Because you obviously show some really impressive declines in SG&A expenses in the quarter. I don't know if there's kind of a way to think about how your ability to minimize, you know, the decremental margins.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Yeah, Amit, it's it. You can't do the comparison when we talk about the 70% flow through just because it's negative. You know, we don't have a lot of levers underneath gross profit that we can pull. Obviously, if you look at it over a long-term period, the 70% is not a stretch goal. We should be able to do that. This environment, though, it's impossible to make that comparison.
Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director)
Okay. All right, cool. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Scott Group of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Hey, thanks. Morning, guys.
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Morning.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Morning.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
So Jim, I want to get your perspective here. You know, there, I guess there's this growing view and, or hope that the cycle is bottoming and optimism about maybe second half recovery next year from an earnings standpoint. You know, you've been a pretty straight shooter, it seems. Just curious what you think.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, if you look at historical cycles, that statement is probably rather accurate. The, you'll see the downturn start probably 12-18 months prior, and I'd say our downturn or softness, I would say, started somewhere in the, you know, maybe not necessarily at the end of 2018, because it was still relatively strong, and then really our softness on the volume side started in about April. So if you go, if you roll that out 12-18 months, yeah, it should, we should see something turn next summer. But I think there's a lot of things going on, you know, when you look at what's going on politically, just in how that affects economic, you know, conditions of the U.S., I think part of that's what's going on in the manufacturing sector today.
Where do we get the relief on that? And where do the business owners start to get some confidence back in investing into their businesses? So I think if you look at a true cycle and how things usually work, you've seen some bankruptcies on the trucking side. Sales are continually relatively high, but orders are way down for trucks. So you should see the trucking supply side maybe bounce up, you know, maybe balance now and start to maybe shrink a little bit over the next, you know, 8-12 months. So that all points to that. But what's really going to go on in the manufacturing side and how are we going to resolve some of these international issues we're having? That one I can't speak to.
But from a true cycle standpoint, I would say you would anticipate that an uptick starting in the summer.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay, that makes sense. And then I want to ask about your model. So incentive comp has been a nice sort of buffer this year. If we're contemplating, let's say, operating results down again next year, or at least the beginning of next year, does the model work where incentive comp would go lower again next year? And then separately, you know, we're seeing some other guys in the space with some just big, big increases in their SG&A costs. Do we need to contemplate that at all for you guys going forward?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, let's speak to the bonus program first. It wouldn't necessarily be another drop off in the bonus, because the bonus will be relatively small this year, especially with the drop off in earnings into the third quarter we saw here. You know, we actually ended up taking a little bit of the bonuses down that we had put up in the third quarter. But we will set a target for 2020. That target will be based on what we think it takes to beat what a market condition looks like. So it doesn't mean that our target would be higher or lower than the 2019 number.
So you could actually have a bonus in a year where consecutive years, our earnings might be a little lower than the prior year based... Because if the market's still not doing well, but we're beating market, I think there should be some type of bonus program. It wouldn't be excessive, but it would—there would be something. So that there may be headwind going into next year on the bonus side. From the SG&A side, yes, we are seeing a little bit of creep, but it's all the investments that everybody else is doing, right? There are some investments into the tech world, where you spend a little bit more money today than you were in prior years.
Incrementally, I don't think you're going to see that creep up or be that noticeable into the SG&A of 2020.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay, perfect. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jason Seidl of Cowen and Company. Your line is now open.
Jason Seidl (Managing Director)
Thank you, operator, and hey, good morning, guys. Want to talk a little bit about BCOs as we look out to 2020. There's been a lot of talk about huge increases in insurance costs for some of the smaller carriers. Do you think that's going to push people to look at the Landstar model to drive for you guys?
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Yeah, Jason, this is Joe. I think there probably is some of that. I think it's hard for us to read through to know how much of that's driving people's decisions. But I think it's one factor, probably among many, if somebody's out on their own authority, if they're looking at a big cost increase, whether it's insurance premiums or something else, or business that they had that goes away and they want to come in and into the safety net that we think Landstar provides to owner-operators. It's a multitude of things, but I think clearly insurance is one of those factors that guys that are out there on their own look at. It's that, it's receivables, it's a host of other things.
But clearly, as you've noted and read some of the things about insurance driving some of these guys out, I think it does impact the small truck owner going forward.
Jason Seidl (Managing Director)
Okay, and so if we do see those increases as we move throughout 2020, should we look at your BCO line as potentially growing because of this, or is it too early to tell?
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
I think it's too early to tell, because I think on the other side of that equation is kind of the market that we're in, right? And we've seen, we saw some decline in our truck count in the third quarter, and I think that's just a function of the, the, the demand environment that's out there now and the pricing environment that's out there now. So I think you've got, you know, you've got a little bit of that to factor in, too, and where are these guys going, and what are they doing?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
And the other thing, too, is we really focus on bringing in the higher quality BCO owner-operator in the network. You know, of every three to four applications we bring, maybe one guy qualifies to come on. So that always is, it's self-limiting, but it's on purpose, and we think it protects the model and keeps us safe.
Jason Seidl (Managing Director)
That makes sense. Follow-up on some of your end markets. Just so I understand it, when you look at your Foodstuffs, excluding that customer, where would the revenues have been in the quarter?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, that's a tricky question. Let's say the top 25, which that customer- the top 25 customers in that were down 36%. Overall, it was down 36, mostly because of that customer.
Jason Seidl (Managing Director)
So roughly flat then?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah.
Jason Seidl (Managing Director)
Okay. On the energy side, that was the one lone bright spot. I know it's not a large percentage of your business, but, but just curious what's going on there since it was the one positive.
Rob Brasher (VP and Chief Commercial Officer)
This is Rob. Excuse me. We continue to see very positive market there. We continue, we're trending that at least through the first half of next year. So we see that as a positive moving forward.
Jason Seidl (Managing Director)
Okay. Appreciate the time, as always, gentlemen.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
I want to go back on that Foodstuffs. The Foodstuffs would have been down, even if you take that customer out.
Jason Seidl (Managing Director)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Todd Fowler of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
... Great. Hey, thanks. Good morning. So Jim, you fielded a lot of questions so far on the volume performance here in the quarter, but it sounds like that pricing's pretty much consistent on a month-over-month basis with normal seasonal expectations. You know, does it feel like at this point that the spot market's kind of found a floor? And then do you have any thoughts kind of on pricing as you move into 2020? I know that you're definitely more of a function of the, the spot market, but what would your expectations be, for pricing trends moving forward from these levels?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, Todd, I'll tell you that, yes, I get very comfortable when we see our pricing stabilized since, you know, since May to June. The seasonal trend is holding, but you would expect it over the last 5 or 7 years. The one concern I would have is the volume side. You know, over time, if the volumes stay where they are, does that cause a double dip, where we're going to see pricing drop off again sometime early into next year? So that's where my concern would be. That since we've held it for 4 or 5 months and we've seen the volumes drop off, I think we're okay, and we're going to be stable throughout the rest of the year and into the first quarter.
Speaking beyond that, like, it, it's really hard to predict based on where the, you know, where the demand's going to come from. Can we, can we get the automotive sector to pick back up, and can we get the manufacturing sector to pick back up? And then I do think we're back into the normal cycle, where we'll see the increases in spot pricing mid-halfway, halfway through the year.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Okay, good. Yeah, no, that's helpful. And I mean, just, it feels like that relative to your guidance, the shortfall has been more on the volume side in the, you know, this quarter in particular versus the,
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely is. You know what? The pricing came in pretty much where we thought it was going to come in, and then the drop off in September and the volumes was where we saw the where we didn't anticipate it to drop off 6%, and that's what we're seeing into October.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Yeah. Okay. And then just for my follow-up, you know, there's been a lot of commentary here in the early part of the third quarter earnings season about competition within the brokerage space, and I know that your niche is a little bit different, where you may not be going up against, you know, some of the, you know, more purely transactional dry van brokers.
But I, I'm curious, you know, from your seat, you know, if you could talk a little bit about what you've been seeing from the competitive landscape, if your view would be that this is more competitive than what you typically see at a point in cycle, if any of the new entrants in the marketplace are really having a big impact, or, or just kind of what, you know, your, your view on the competitive landscape right now is in the market. Thanks.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, I would say you, I think there is a little bit of impact on the overall brokerage market by those new entrants. I don't think there's any question that they're getting some kind of traction, or they're doing... You know, their marketing campaigns are fantastic as it relates to marketing to the investment community. But as it relates to directly hitting our business, I think over the last 12 months, we're probably seeing more of them coming in and trying to sell into our some of the stuff we do. You know, I don't know of a significant amount of customers or anything we've lost to those, I would refer to the digital guys who are coming into the marketplace.
But yeah, I think everybody's focused on it, and they, they want to see what they can do, and they're getting traction. I think they, you know, one of them has come across to say that, you know, they, they're not making great margins now, but over time, they're going to get to 15%-20%. And, and in my personal opinion, I think those 15% or 20% margins aren't realistic in a future that these digital guys are compete against each other for pricing. So I think in the long term, you know, be watching our margins, and, it, and that's kind of where the, the whole industry is going to be on the brokerage side. You know, is, is that 15% that people talk about margin, is that going to continue into the future? It's, it's possible, and it...
And for us, we believe it is probable, especially in some of the niche markets we're in, because there's a value added on top of flatbed and heavy haul and drop and hook and all that stuff that we do that isn't necessarily that just ad hoc business on a dry van.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Yeah, no, I certainly understand your niche and the comments just about the general market are definitely helpful, and I think something that, you know, everybody's kind of dialed into at this point, especially given some of the recent commentary. So hey, that's what I had this morning. Thanks a lot for the time.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Sure, Todd.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Okay, thanks, Jim.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Scott Schneeberger of Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.
Scott Schneeberger (Managing Director)
Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just curious, as we head into the holiday season, your thoughts on e-commerce, and the consumer this time of year, how it compares to previous years, and then how that, I assume that mostly ties into consumer durables. I don't know how you measure it, but any commentary on that as well? Thanks.
Rob Brasher (VP and Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah, Scott, this is Rob. As we enter into the peak season, e-commerce, we're kind of seeing it flat year over year to what we're seeing. Now, we're still waiting for orders to come in from some of our big customers and kind of tell us what their expectations are for the season. But, based on kind of what Joe said earlier about trailer requests and things like that, we're kind of flat as we were to last year.
Scott Schneeberger (Managing Director)
All right. Thanks, appreciate it. And then just, the kind of to clarify the question on consumer durables, how are you feeling about that into the fourth quarter trends you're seeing, being your largest end market? And it sounds overall in the economy, like the consumer is still strong. Do you feel solid there, and how much visibility do you have maybe, fourth quarter or beyond? Thanks.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
As you know, we don't have much visibility into the... that sector is highly diversified from a customer standpoint, so the visibility is more general economic. So I, you know, based on the consumer confidence and all things that are going on, you'd expect us to be a little confident on the, on the durable side going through the end of the quarter, fourth quarter. Coming into next year, I think it gets a little more unpredictable, but, if there's one area that we do have that little bright spot, you'd say that the consumer durables is where it is, and I think we have a little bit of confidence it'll kind of hang through the quarter, till we get to year-end.
Scott Schneeberger (Managing Director)
All right. Thanks. I appreciate it, guys.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Matt Brooklier of Buckingham Research. Your line is now open.
Matt Brooklier (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, thanks, and good morning.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Morning.
Matt Brooklier (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
I apologize, I missed it, but could you give us the truck volume declines by month again?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
It was 4%, 3%, and 6%. July through September.
Matt Brooklier (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
You said October is running at eight?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, higher single digits.
Matt Brooklier (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Do you have those numbers for van and also the, you know, what you do on the unsided platform business, if not-
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, if you give us a minute, I think Kevin can get that for you. We just gotta grab it.
Matt Brooklier (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. And then, I you know, just taking a look at your, you know, your gross yields, your, your net revenue margin, that came in kind of at the higher end of your expectations. Is that, is that just a function of, of the model and, and where we're at in the cycle? Was there anything, I guess, unique about, you know, that number? And then, I guess, what, what are your expectations for, your, your gross yields in fourth quarter?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think what you see is, I think as we're into that cycle a little bit, where the capacity really loosened up during the year, I think we're, you know, I don't want to call it tight, but, you know, we saw the rates go up a little bit into the third quarter, but they're still very good. So I think it's more cyclical. I don't think there's anything unique about what happened in the quarter. Generally, we see a little bit more squeeze on margins coming into the fourth quarter as, you know, the trucks get more busy during the peak time. I think we anticipated a slight uptick, but nothing much moving from the PT rate we saw coming in through the third quarter.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Yeah, Matt, we should probably put in 14.7 to 15.1 on the gross profit margin for Q4. Here are the volumes, van versus flatbed in Q3, 6%, 6% and 9% down on van, and platform was negative 5, flat and negative 2.
Matt Brooklier (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate the time.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Sure. Sure.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is from Stephanie Benjamin of SunTrust. Your line is open.
Stephanie Benjamin (Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Morning.
Stephanie Benjamin (Research Analyst)
Just most of my questions have been answered, but I did want to take a step back to talk a little bit about some of the technology initiatives that have been rolled out for the last couple of years. Maybe you can provide an update on, I know there were a lot done from a pricing standpoint, and any anecdotes, some of the benefits that you're seeing, or how we should think about just even the timeline of those investments, when we should start to see some returns or even stepped-up investments going forward. That would be helpful. Thanks.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think there'll continue to be investments into the technologies that we use today. As you mentioned, what we'll walk through is a pricing tool, which we didn't really have, which Landstar didn't really have. We had a, it was kind of a very manual process to do pricing. And about, I would say, about 18 months ago, we rolled out a pricing tool where you get prices within, you know, seconds, where you put in lane information. The usage there is, you know, we're looking at about, you know, 5,000 users a week on that. So what's really going on is these tools we put out, they're just being absorbed by the agents family and making their jobs more efficient, more effective. We also rolled out...
What we did is our mobile app was significantly enhanced for available loads, so that where the trucks can see our, our loadings, significant enhancements, that also was rolled out, I'd say, 12-18 months ago, 64,000 downloads, 12,000 users per day, so high, high volume of activity on that. And then internally, you know, we manage a trailer fleet of 14,000 trailers. We're given better visibility into those trailers. We're also doing electronic requests, so we can manage our trailer fleet better. So there's efficiencies on that side of it. Another efficiencies is when we deal with the agents on getting credit approved for them.
We also automated that whole process over the last probably six months, so that they can more rapidly get approval on new customers, so they can more rapidly move a load for those customers. To measure the results of all that would be a little difficult in a down environment. And I'd like to say that, you know, well, I wouldn't say it, but, you know, would we be down, would our volumes be down more without it? I can't, I can't answer those questions. But I think it's just building more efficiencies for the agents so they can move more loads with the same number of staff. Well, and to continue down the road, as you know, we still have, we rolled out the Max, we call it the Landstar Maximizer, which is where the...
That was about 12 months ago, where the capacity can actually run routes. So they put in an origin, they say, say, you're in Jacksonville today, and you want to be in Jacksonville in 7 days. You put that into your available loads request, and it'll give you a routing guide that what loads you can pick up to do that and what the revenue is for those loadings. So there's a lot going on. We'll continue to push those out and continue to add functionality to those. But the good thing is we've got a baseline for all that, that's very effective now, and we'll just keep upgrading and tweaking them as we go forward. The biggest project we took on, and the most complex one, is just over, you know, over our TMS.
We're running off an IBM i mainframe from the 1980s, and we've been rolling out a TMS, and it's probably about 5% of our loadings today, truck loadings are on that TMS today, and we'll slowly continue to roll that out over 3-5 years. You know, there's a cost to that. It's probably $8 million-$10 million a year. Maybe not that high, $5 million-$7 million a year, to get that rolled out.
Stephanie Benjamin (Research Analyst)
Great! That was a lot of color. That's all I had. Thanks again for the time.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Next question is from Bascome Majors of Susquehanna. Your line is now open.
Bascome Majors (Senior Industrials Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks. I wanted to follow up a bit on Scott's question about incentive comp and how that flexes cyclically. It's clearly been, you know, really helped the decline in, in the net revenue this year. Can you give us a finer point on that? You know, specifically, where the 2019 full year accrual stands as of today for the annual incentive and the stock comp? You know, what a return to target for both the annual incentive and stock comp might look like, you know, the headwind as profits come back. And maybe to cap it off, you know, what level of earnings growth will we need to see in 2020 to get you back to a target payout? Thank you.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Hey, Bascome, this is Kevin. We've got $2.2 million accrued on the incentive comp year to date, so we're three-fourths of the way there. So annually, 2019 should be, you know, just south of $3 million at this rate. Stock comp is running in the $5 million-$6 million range. Obviously, with increased earnings assumed for next year, that number is gonna go up. I'd say, you know, anywhere between $5 million and $10 million would be a good number there. But the, you know, the incentive comp's all based on what the targets are for next year. Once they're reset at the end of the year, if we hit exactly on the target, it'll be $8 million next year. And I guess you could see that as a $5 million headwind.
And that would assume that we're hitting exactly on the target and a one-time payout, so it'd be $2 million a quarter.
Bascome Majors (Senior Industrials Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. And, you know, I know you're working on your targets now for the budgeting process, and, you know, you wouldn't share the internal target with us anyway, but I suspect that includes some level of earnings growth in line or, or approaching your, your, your historic kind of 10-15 target. Is it, is that a fair assessment from the outside looking in, with, with limited information here?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, I think what we do is the first approach we take is what do we think revenue is gonna do? And we look at what we think the market's gonna do. So by saying that, it's not necessarily true that we would have a target that's higher than this year, especially if you're, if you, if you believe you're heading into, and I'm not saying this is what's going on, but if you believe you're heading into a down market going into 2020, we may not have a target of revenue that's higher than the prior year, okay? So we look at market conditions.
I think what the, what the organization tries to do is if, if we're, if we're performing at market or better, we should be rewarded, even if the, even if the results are a little bit lower in the subsequent year on the top line. And then there's other things we have to take into consideration. Did we have a good or bad insurance year in 2019? So you may have a, an earnings pickup or an earnings hit, depending on, like, if our insurance came out, and it did back in probably the early days, 2000, came out at $40 million, we're running at $70 million today, I don't think we'd budget $40 million because it's, that's kind of an anomaly year. And then you take into consideration how much you got to put up for, the, the incentive comp.
If you have zero in a year and you're gonna hit your targets, you're gonna have $8 million. So, those are kind of the factors you got to really look at. Typically, yes. I don't recall a year where we actually had a plan that was lower than the subsequent year, but it doesn't mean that that can't happen looking at market conditions or specific items within the prior year's P&L.
Bascome Majors (Senior Industrials Equity Research Analyst)
This is really great color, guys. I appreciate it. Thank you for the time.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Hey, Bascome, I got to correct something there. The annual number should, this year's number should be 2.2. So we're three-fourths of the way to that annual number for 2019. I picked up the year-end number first.
Bascome Majors (Senior Industrials Equity Research Analyst)
All right. All right, so 2.2 for the full year. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Next question is from Bruce Chan of Stifel. Your line is now open.
Bruce Chan (VP and Senior Analyst)
Gents, good morning. I'm in pretty good shape here, but I did want to maybe get an update on how you're thinking about the regulatory framework. I know, Jim, you, you did mention the, you know, political situation. But first on California AB5 and the IC classification issue, do you have any updates there on how you're responding to that and how you're thinking about the potential cost effects?
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
Hey, Bruce, this is Joe. We are obviously well aware of AB5, and we have roughly 400 BCO trucks that we're gonna have to take a harder look at and start to talk to those individuals as to how they—what their intentions are around AB5. But we haven't had any of those conversations yet, so I think from an impact standpoint, you know, we would have. We'll determine whether or not BCO trucks exit the system, either to get their own authority or to leave the business or what have you. Once we have a little bit of a chance to have those conversations, we'll have a better understanding of how that might affect truck count for us.
Bruce Chan (VP and Senior Analyst)
Okay, that's, that's super helpful. And then, you know, Joe, maybe this is a good one for you as well, but, you know, as we look at the final phase of ELDs or the AOBRD conversion and the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse and, you know, maybe even IMO 2020, how are you benchmarking these issues in terms of capacity against, you know, for example, the previous ELD phase?
Joe Beacom (VP and Chief Safety and Operations Officer)
I think that the, you know, this move from AOBRD to ELD, I think is. I think mid-year, there was a lot of concern over whether that transition would actually occur or would there be some severe disruption. I think more recently, I understand that most carriers are doing the right thing and moving forward on making that, making themselves ready for that conversion. So I don't see quite the disruption, moving from AOBRD to ELD. And then with the Clearinghouse, I think the Clearinghouse is really, again, I think people are just now getting their hands on that and how they're gonna do that. And if it, it's really more of a cost. It's a potential cost impact.
I mean, for us, it's a fairly nominal cost, but for others that are smaller, maybe that's more significant. It's really more about having the process and having the program in place to make sure that you adhere to the rule going forward. So again, not big cost. It's more preparation and having your ducks in a row to make sure that you comply come 2020.
Bruce Chan (VP and Senior Analyst)
... Okay, that's great. Really helpful. And then just one final question here. If I'm not mistaken, we're lapping some of the lost Amazon business from their insourcing last year. And I know that you all mentioned that we'll be flat on the e-com side, but how are we thinking about pricing as we've replaced some of that business?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
We actually, the Amazon business kind of softened up on us last year. So from a comparison standpoint, in this fourth quarter, it's, there is really no impact there. And the pricing is overall for the e-commerce stuff, they're putting pressure on pricing just the way everybody else is in the marketplace. Although we've managed to keep our pricing stable for the last few months, we anticipate that'll continue through the fourth quarter, and that we won't get a lot more pressure. Because regardless of how soft or how good the peak is, it's still a peak, and there'll still be some, you know, demand for trucks.
Bruce Chan (VP and Senior Analyst)
Okay. All right, that's great color. I really appreciate the time.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ravi Shanker of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Ravi Shanker (Managing Director)
Thanks, morning, guys. Jim, thanks for your comments earlier on the new competitors entering the space. I wanted to follow up specifically on flatbed. It sounds like the new guys have been primarily focused on dry van and reefer so far, but I think, if one of the new guys are entering the flatbed space right now, I think you pointed out that this is a more specialized operation. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that, on kind of how specialized is it really? How easy is this business to, quote, unquote, digitize, and kind of what kind of success or not do you think the new entrants will have in the space?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, well, our flatbed business, it's 30% of our flatbed business is the heavy specialized, which really requires some human intervention. You're putting big, heavy equipment on specialized equipment. It's not just a regular flatbed. So 30% of our flatbed is that. The other parts of the flatbed, there's probably some value add on just a generic flatbed. And then again, there's probably some flatbed that is very generic and probably can do ad hoc and go on to a digital freight platform. So it's really hard to tell the impact that they would have. Do we think they can just jump in and take over all the flatbed market? Absolutely not. I think there's a little bit of value add there that's not related to technology.
I mean, there's a lot of coordination on routing and guides and stuff like that. And Rob may actually have a little bit more to talk about on the flatbed side.
Rob Brasher (VP and Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah, Ravi, on the flatbed side, it... Again, as Jim said, the more specialized you get, the more touches there are. You've got permits, you've got routes, you've got the more touches, the more human interaction. And also, as Jim said, on the flatbed side, there are markets, there are customers, I guess to say that could be taken over by this space. But again, for the most part, it's an ad hoc type situation. It's going to job sites. It's a lot of human interaction and a lot of discussions that take place that can't be automated over, we don't feel it can be automated over a website or an app.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Remember, just so you just got to remember, this whole thing is a pricing game. We have the tools that they have to do this. It's just, you know, will they come in and undercut pricing? And that's what we got our eyes on.
Ravi Shanker (Managing Director)
Understood. And just to follow up to that, have you heard from any of your agents or partners that the new guys have been reaching out to them?
Rob Brasher (VP and Chief Commercial Officer)
Again, we've heard of them in our space. We've heard of them possibly in some customers. We haven't, we have not lost, we have not—we do not feel that we've lost any business to them at this point in time.
Ravi Shanker (Managing Director)
Very good. Thanks for the updates, guys.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Next question is from Scott Group of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Hey, thanks for the follow-up, guys. So I just want to follow up with two things. One, on rates, you're saying that they're sort of holding steady the last few months. You expect them to hold steady from here. I just want to understand, is that in line with normal seasonality or not? I would have thought that you'd see rates typically move higher in the fourth quarter, so I just want to understand what you're saying.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, from a seasonal standpoint, yes, you're right. We expect it to continue seasonally the way it's been for the last since May. So seasonally, and I'm looking at my notes here. Typically, we see.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Pricing in the fourth quarter is typically 1% higher, and we were 1% better than the historical average in September. So that's where we landed on the pricing.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, so we're basically coming out seasonal. We're expecting that seasonal trend.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay. And you're saying that September actually was a point better than normal seasonality sequentially?
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
That's, that's correct.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay, good. And then on this, you know, the idea of, Jim, you mentioned earlier that maybe gross margins are going to head lower for the industry over time. How does this impact your model? You've, right, you've got some parts of the business with more fixed margins. Do you need to, you know, rethink how the take rates work with your BCOs and agents? Do you need to rethink the agent model more broadly in this sort of world? I'm just curious how you think about it.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
No, no. When we speak to that, it's mostly 'cause, you know, the BCO's got a percent of revenue, so I, I, on that impact there, as long as the BCOs are willing to haul at the rates they're hauling at, then that spread stays the same. When we talk about the margins, it's mostly on the, on the third-party truck side, you know, when we're using third-party capacity. And when, and also, when I talk about, I'm talking about the ad hoc, generic type freight more than I am talking about drop and hook or flatbed or any of that type of stuff.
I think in the long term, I think it would be unrealistic to believe that if guys are trying to build scale via using tools that, to us, don't add much value to the process, that they are going to put pressure on pricing and margins into the future. You know, they're going to try and buy trucks for higher than, you know, the normal brokers ever buy for, and they're going to try and bid the shipper a bit lower than the current incumbents are doing, and they're going to put a squeeze on margins... And will that hold over the long term, or will it happen in the long term? I'm a believer that, yeah, I think everybody's going to end up playing in that game. When more entrants come into a market, that's kind of what happens.
It's unrealistic to believe it won't. Do I think it's significant from the, just say, the average markets today is 15%? Do I think it's going to single digits? Absolutely not, because there is value in what everybody provides. There's cost of funds, there's not necessarily direct cargo risk, but you can get tangled up in it. There's other things that, you know, that you have costs that you have to think about before you just give away a free service.
Scott Group (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Next question is from Todd Fowler of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Great, thanks for the follow-up. Kevin, I just want to make sure I've got the incentive comp numbers correct. You, you said in the prepared remarks in the third quarter, incentive comp was $300,000. Was that what the amount was, or was that what it was down year-over-year? I just, I want to make sure I've got that number correct.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
Yeah, that's what we took the accrual down by, was $300,000 in Q3.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Okay. And so year to date right now, you're expecting 2.2 for the full year, but what is it through the third quarter?
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
It, let's say it's $1.7 million and $2.1-$2.2 million in total for the whole year.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Perfect.
Kevin Stout (VP and CFO)
1.7 through three quarters, and then about $2 million-$2.2 million, somewhere in that range for the full-
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
We basically have three quarters of the year covered.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Yep. Okay, got it. And, and then just my last one, Jim, as a follow-up. You know, with the balance sheet, I think that you talked about share repurchases. I, I didn't hear you mention anything on the, the special dividend side. You know, you guys continue to do a great job of generating free cash. You know, what are your thoughts on a potential special dividend right now?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, we always like to be opportunistic on the share buyback side, and that's been where our focus has been. But, you know, we've done special dividends in the past. You know, typically, it's related to something where, you know, we thought the capital—we thought the gains taxes, the dividend taxes were going to go up back in 2012. We sold companies in 2013 and did a special on that. We didn't buy stock in 2017 and end up with cash at the end of the year. So it's a discussion that we have with the board coming up, you know, and that clearly will be considered. We are sitting on, as Kevin said, $320 million worth of cash right now. I don't think that's excessive.
So, you know, I clearly, as a management team, we like the buybacks. We've liked them since 1997. We'd like to continue down that path, but it doesn't. I wouldn't totally exclude a special, but, you know, management leans on the opportunities of the buybacks.
Todd Fowler (Managing Director)
Okay. That's good color. Thanks a lot for the time this morning.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And our final question came from the line of Ben Hartford of Baird. Your line is now open.
Ben Hartford (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, thanks for getting me on, guys. Jim, I want to come back to your comment about the TMS that you're rolling out over the next 3-5 years. I imagine you'll talk more about it in April, but, some perspective on that. Is that something that's internally developed versus off the shelf? One. Two, how flexible is that TMS going to be in terms of being able to incorporate anything off the shelf that might come about in, in the market over the next few years? And then three, as you do think about the context of the changes in the competitive landscape, what is that TMS going to bring your agents in the field, from a competitive point of view with regard to bids, et cetera, that, that you think is different than they might have today? Thanks.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah. The definition of TMS is hard to get my hands around. Does TMS include pricing, truck visibility, and everything like that? You know, is it all from soup to nuts? And internally, when I refer to TMS, it's more of our little operating system to place orders and to track freight, just from a workflow standpoint, not necessarily from the visibility or the pricing or any of that type of stuff. So in our world, and not to get too technical, but you know, we are capable to plug and play many various third-party softwares. The TMS is a third party that we are working on getting it to fit into our agency base. That's why it's taken us a little bit longer.
But in our world, when we talk about the TMS, it is the center vehicle to process our freight transactions. Off of that, we can plug and play a visibility tool, a pricing tool, and feed information back and forth for us through what we call the middleware. It's like the information highway, right? So we can buy, we can go out and buy third-party software today and connect it to our middleware to have it speak to the TMS or have it speak to our visibility tool or feed back into the pricing tools, and they all can interconnect. They don't have to be in the same software package. It doesn't have to be the same vendor, you know?
I think the fact that over the last 12 months, we put in this middleware that helps all our systems talk to each other, is very advantageous to going forward, and the ability for us to add any type of functionality or any type of system to the model today, that we probably couldn't have done 2 years ago.
Ben Hartford (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
From an agent's perspective, either collaboration with other agents or, or an individual agent, what is, what does this tool bring them that they don't have today?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, there's efficiencies, clearly. If I think when I had mentioned that we're working off a 1980s mainframe from the IBM i, that it's really, they are doing a lot of manual things in our office. Just the fact that they were doing you know manual requests for trailers and manual requests for credit, and the TMS will provide them. Our older system actually didn't store rates. They had to key the rate off of sheets every time they put it in. So it's a little embarrassing to say, but yeah, they didn't have the rates in there. The new system has rates in there, and it has everything that a newer TMS would have, that something that you built in the 1980s might not necessarily have.
Ben Hartford (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. And then if I could get one more last one in. I know a lot of talk about a bottoming potentially in industry fundamentals and an inflection mid-next year. But given your perspective on the various cycles, what do you think the positioning is going to be in terms of the agents as they go into 2020's bid season? And just more broadly across the brokerage space, how competitive do you anticipate it to be, you know, if we assume normal seasonality into next year, some softness in 1Q, still available supply, is this something where competition for loads does continue to step up until we find that absolute bottom?
Or do you expect this kind of relative discipline that we've seen over the past few months kind of hold over the next six months as we hold our breath to mid-next year?
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Yeah, you know, I think as I said earlier, I think if you're—if we're going through a true market cycle with no disruptions and no irregularities, abnormalities, you are looking at that, you know, the competition for trucks coming back, right? Where right now, competition for trucks isn't difficult. I think if you look at us, 25% of our loads come in through EDI. It's automated, and we're accepting probably over 90-something% of those loads, where a year ago, it was 80%. So from our standpoint, we look at what's the competition for trucks going to be, and then what's the competition for the shippers?
Today, we're getting similar amount of bids in from shippers, and just probably not landing enough of them because the pricing is lower in this market than it would be in a more balanced market. And next year, I think we do anticipate and hope to see where we're hitting more of those, as you know, people are having more difficulty finding trucks and that the market tightens up a little bit. Can I swear that that's going to happen today based on the economic environment, what's going on internationally? No, but if it's a normal cycle, I think we're back to normalcy, you know, come next, you know, summer. But it's just hard from an economic standpoint for me to just really say, "Yeah, that's what's going to happen.
Ben Hartford (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Understood. Thanks for the time.
Operator (participant)
At this time, I show no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to you, sir, for closing remarks.
Jim Gattoni (President and CEO)
Well, thank you, Eunice, and I'd like to thank you, and I look forward to speaking with you again on our 2019 earnings conference call, currently scheduled for January 30th. Have a good day.
Operator (participant)
Thank you for joining the conference call today. Have a good morning. Please disconnect your lines at this time.