What’s Ahead for the Motor Freight Carriers?

Abstract

Through the courtesy of Mr. Patrick J. James, Vice President in Charge of Research of the Chase Manhattan Bank and member of the Journal's Editorial Board, we are privileged to publish what may be described as a stereoscopic study of an important industry. The industry's characteristics and outlook are discussed in two mutually complementary and supporting papers. The respective authors are identified in the brief biographical footnote on the bottom of the first page of each of the two articles. One of them is a leader of the industry being reviewed, and the other is a leading analyst of that industry. The merits of such two dimensional presentations are self-evident, and we are most grateful to Mr. James for having originated this idea. We earnestly hope that it will initiate a long series of similar joint studies. These studies could also take the form of controversial discussions, such as, for the sake of illustration, flow through accounting vs. normalized accounting by utilities, as applied by analysts and/or company executives and representatives of regulatory bodies. Some other discussions could concern themselves, for instance, with methods of deriving life insurance company earnings, as done by analysts and life insurance company executives, for evaluating life insurance stocks. We appeal to all constituent Societies of The Financial Analysts Federation and, in particular, to institutional research departments to follow this excellent model in subsequent issues of the Journal. If some studies should have a regional character, this would add an extra flavor to the contribution.