HTLDHeartland Express, Inc.
Is it safe?
Strong, no red flags: a safe balance sheet and comfortable debt (AA).
Financially healthy, low distress risk Altman Z-score, a bankruptcy-risk model from five balance-sheet ratios.
Rock-solid balance sheet, low leverage. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Moderate price swings, typical volatility. Worst drawdown -70% · now 37% below its 52-week high.
Against the whole market›
Percentile against every name Ryufin tracks. Higher is better; the tick marks the middle of the market. Context, not one of the checks above.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can HTLD take a bad year?
Heartland Express, Inc. carries $73M of net debt at 1.24× EBITDA: covered by EBITDA, but with no operating profit left after depreciation to pay the interest from.
Net debt · as at Q2 2026 · under two and a half years of EBITDA, comfortable
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 1.24×
Net debt / EBITDA · 3.13× a year ago · the load is coming down
- Altman Z-score
- 2.74
Altman Z-score · grey zone, between 1.8 and 3
- Interest cover
- none
Interest cover · no operating profit to pay the interest bill from
Details›
- Total debtQ2 2026
- $135M
- Cash and short-term investments
- $62M
- Net debt
- $73M
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $58M
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- −$17M
- Debt / equity
- 0.18×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 2.31×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 38%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −70%
- Below its 52-week high
- 37%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
The balance sheet
What it owes against what it owns, and how close that comes to trouble.
How far can it fall?
How much the price moves, how deep and how long its falls have run, and what each unit of risk has paid.