The costs of accidents appears to be taking a toll on mega carrier Swift Transportation, which just reduced their full-year 2015 earnings forecast by more than 10%.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Swift blamed their earnings miss on “charges related to accident and worker’s compensation claims” as well as the settlement of a class-action gender-discrimination lawsuit.
Swift said they now expect to make between $1.43 to $1.52 a share, down from the previous full-year 2015 forecast of $1.64 to $1.74.
In addition to reducing their full year earnings forecast, the firm also warned that they will make less than expected in the third and fourth quarters of 2015.
They blamed the quarterly revision on the fact that many customers who used to pay premium holiday freight rates have instead signed long term contracts in order to reduce rates and guarantee capacity.
“A lot of customers are super-concerned about capacity,” said Jason Bates, VP of investor relations at Swift, “They’re moving freight out of the spot market into the contract market. They want to lock that up and know that they have a contract.”
The company’s stock price (SWFT) has declined nearly 46% so far in 2015, and dropped an additional 4% on the announcement.