10 firms in state index show 3-month gains

ArcBest, the Fort Smith trucking firm, had the state’s best performing stock with a return of almost 43 percent in the second quarter, which ended Friday.

Ten of the 16 stocks on the Arkansas Index, a priceweighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, advanced for the quarter and six were down.

Seven of the stocks — America’s Car Mart, Acxiom, ArcBest, Dillard’s, Murphy Oil, P.A.M. Transportation and Uniti Group — rose by more than 17 percent in the past three months.

ArcBest reported yearover-year improvements in first quarter revenue and net income, said Nathan Green, a financial adviser with Simmons First Investment Group Inc. in Searcy.

Green said that Judy McReynolds, ArcBest’s chief executive officer, pointed to strong market demand for ArcBest’s supply chain solutions and purposeful yield management as the drivers of positive first-quarter results.

Shares of Acxiom, the Conway-based company that is reportedly taking offers to sell a big chunk of its business, rose 31.9 percent in the second quarter.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Acxiom is attempting to sell its datamarketing division, known as Acxiom Marketing Solutions, which generated about 75 percent of Acxiom’s revenue in its most recent fiscal year, which ended March 31.

The Journal estimated the division could be acquired for between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion. The total value of Acxiom’s stock is about $2.3 billion.

Two international advertising companies — Interpublic Group of Companies of New York City and Japan-

based Dentsu Inc. — were the firms expected to bid on the Acxiom division, the newspaper said.

The data-gathering industry continues to face intense scrutiny from consumers, Green said.

“Following a decline in share price, Acxiom began the quarter by announcing an expansion of [its] share repurchase authorization to $500 million,” Green said. “This was followed by [its] earnings report showing year-over-year increases in revenue and gross profit.”

The worst performing stock for the second quarter was Windstream Holdings of Little Rock, finishing down more than 25 percent.

Windstream completed a 1-for-5 reverse stock split in the second quarter, Green said.

“[Windstream] reported year over year declines in the amount of high-speed Internet customers as well as digital television customers,” Green said. “The company continues to be challenged to expand high-speed Internet capabilities as consumers demand faster service and digital media consumption evolves.”

Shares of Van Buren-based USA Truck, which was the best performing Arkansas stock last year and also for the first quarter, fell almost 8 percent in the second quarter, the second biggest drop. USA Truck announced its third consecutive quarter of positive earnings per share, Green said.

It also continued progress toward its goal of improving its leverage ratio over the long term by reducing total debt by $17 million during the second quarter, Green said.

USA Truck’s chief executive officer, James Reed, pointed to “an increasingly difficult driver recruiting environment” as a current challenge the company and industry seem to be facing, Green said.

The three publicly traded Arkansas banks underperformed the Arkansas Index as a whole.

Bank of the Ozarks of Little Rock was the third-worst performing stock on the index, losing more than 6 percent in the second quarter.

Conway-based Home BancShares was off 1.1 percent for the quarter. Simmons First National of Pine Bluff was up about 5 percent for the quarter.

The performance by Arkansas banks, said Garland Binns, a Little Rock banking attorney, “reflects the uncertainty in the marketplace in connection with the financial sector during the second quarter and continuing into the third quarter.”

Little Rock-based Dillard’s was the best performing Arkansas stock for the first six months of the year, rising about 57 percent.

Bentonville-based America’s Car-Mart gained 38.6 percent for the first half of the year.