Amid a month of turmoil, with rumors of a shutdown over historically high fuel prices bouncing around, Overdrive's Partners in Business coproducer ATBS urged owner-operators rather to "keep your foot on the gas" to make hay of what's likewise a historically favorable trucking market.
That pedal-to-the-floor image ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted invoked near the end of his Sept. 23 presentation of the firm's mid-year analysis of financial trends derived from client data -- that is, before catching himself.
Well, actually "don't keep your foot on the gas," he said, urging owner-operators to do everything possible to improve fuel efficiency.
It's a given in a time of $6-plus national average diesel, for certain.
But Hosted's bigger point about what's likely ahead is clear. Though the initial boom in spot rates that began early in the year has moderated a bit, contract rates are gaining in the aftermath, and "things are really good in the trucking market right now," he said. Yet "this isn’t probably going to be a long cycle."
Gains have been driven not by any huge freight uptick (outside flatbed) but the myriad pressures on "illegal capacity" from enforcement, Hosted noted. "While the sun is shining right now, I’d go get after it, save up" while the iron is hot to make good on biz aspirations, whether a new or another truck purchase, or family investments, whatever the case may be.
Owner-op revenues, bedrock income up big through mid-year
Income really took off starting in March, when at the Mid-America Trucking Show Hosted and so many truckers could well see rates were skyrocketing.
Net income has risen rapidly, as shown in the chart. For the average ATBS client, it amounts to $7,000 or more on the bottom line for the 12 months that ended in June versus the prior 12 months.
For flatbedders, the gains have been twice that and more. "Flatbed’s really robust right now," Hosted said, largely a function of massive data-center buildout. "These data centers require an immense amount of flatbed freight. ... It really pushed that market forward."
Flatbed's "accelerated far faster than anybody else," he added.
It's not all fuel-efficient leased owners making bank on rapidly-escalating fuel surcharges by beating their fleet average. As of June, both the revenue-per-mile-net-fuel and income-per-mile figures rivaled post-COVID-era highs across the board.
[Related: More ways to take the horror out of high fuel]
Yes, Hosted emphasized, "fuel's high, but this has been the time you can make the most money per mile," ever, effectively, even more so with a fuel-efficient truck.
As Hosted emphasized, even subtracting an average fuel surcharge to get at underlying rates, freight pricing's really been popping off the first half of the year. Revenue-minus-fuel hit well above the COVID peaks in June, matching much of the pandemic period in other 2026 months.
And for the real trend figuring in costs for net income per month over time -- owner-ops didn't hit the post-COVID peak through June, but certainly matched most months of that period from March on in raw dollars earned. Figured per-mile, though, net's well up compared to the prior boom.
Hosted expects good conditions through the balance of the year, with capacity reductions from enforcement continuine. English-language-proficiency enforcement, shutting out e-logs with overseas backdoors, non-domiciled CDL holders exiting, the Motus system shutting out fraudulent actors: All will continue to have compounding influence on the amount of "competition" that's out there.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was correct in assessing the market impact of many of the DOT's efforts back in March, turns out, when he said: "Rates are going to go up."
[Related: $50K truckers striking Oct. 1? Here's what drivers are saying]
With cost inflation continuing not just in trucking services but all around the economy, ATBS adjusted its benchmark income at which it recommends owners elect to file taxes as an S Corp and make themselves a W2 employee of the business. The figure's now $90K annually, up from the $80K mentioned in Overdrive's last-updated Partners in Business installment about the tax savings that can be gleaned from the structure.
If you've been reaping the rewards of market improvements this year such that you're tracking to end it near or above the $90K mark, think about making that switch to go into effect the first of the year, Hosted advised.
Hosted shared this slide illustrated potential savings for an owner-operator netting $150K electing to pay him/herself a $50K salary and avoid 15.3% self-employment tax on the remaining $100K. It's important to note that if you're taking the approach, sock away some of the savings into a retirement-investment account to make up for shortchanging yourself on Social Security benefits long-term.
Keep tuned for a special Overdrive Radio edition featuring Hosted's presentation in full, and he delves into the many capacity-restricting enforcement efforts mentioned above in great detail in the following video from March of 2026, when spot rates were really kicking off. "Skyrocketing," as he put it:
