Con-Way Trucking (CNW) is buying more trailers, about 1,270 from Wabash National. Whether that is related to news of the week before is related is kind of fuzzy, it seems that American truckers want to do business in China. One of Con-Way’s operations is logistic controls.

Earlier this month several transportation companies had a downturn in the stock market. Take a look at what Con-Way in the last couple weeks, not exactly down.

The company does some $4.3 billion in sales and has a market capitalization of closer to $2 billion. The sales did just shy of 4 percent higher, yet profits went the other way. From the quarterly earnings per share figures, December 2006 reported $1.65, March 2007 had $0.63-0.69 (extraordinary items), $1.02 in June, and $2.29 at the end of September. Unfortunately, this last December was only $0.72, a rather significant drop.

Before we start painting the picture of Con-Way as a loser, look at the comparison chart.

While Con-Way has performed below the industry average, it is about to intersect on its way up to the DJ Total Market index. Mirroring the fortunes of the industry average, Con-Way appears to be bucking the larger market’s trends.

Here is what makes it interesting to me. The Wall Street Journal indicates that 95 percent of the company is institutionally-owned. While the banks, insurance companies, and mutual funds (over 450 of them) are fully stocked up on this company, if others are interested in riding this uptick, we might have to pay a premium to get it. Currently the price to earnings is in the 15 percentile. With a dismal recent earnings report, if the price is rising for whatever reasons, the banks and such simply have to sit on their holdings while the rest of us squeeze the remaining share prices, improving their market value.

The profit margins are positive. The revenues are rising. The prospects just might be looking up. Director Peter Stott recently (November 2007) bought some 20,000 shares at $40.88. They are selling for $47. Someone is profiting with Con-Way, maybe they think there is more to come.