What Happened?
Shares of global car rental company Hertz (NASDAQ: HTZ) jumped 12% in the afternoon session after the rental-car company reported second-quarter financial results that surpassed analyst expectations and provided a strong forecast for future earnings.
The stock's pre-market jump continued a significant rally from the previous session, where shares surged nearly 30%. For the second quarter, Hertz posted a smaller-than-expected adjusted loss of $0.11 per share on revenue of $2.4 billion, which beat estimates. The strong performance was driven by better pricing and improved use of its vehicle fleet.
Looking ahead, the company provided an optimistic outlook, forecasting positive earnings per share for the third quarter and adjusted corporate EBITDA between $275 million and $325 million. This positive guidance raised investor confidence in the company's turnaround.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Hertz’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 57 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Hertz and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was about 1 month ago when the stock dropped 6.9% on the news that President Trump declared the Iran ceasefire "over" and vowed renewed strikes, reversing the fuel relief the sector had enjoyed and sending oil back above $75. Transportation is the most direct cyclical proxy for fuel costs and global trade volumes. Airlines, truckers, railroads, parcel carriers, and ocean shippers all run on diesel and jet fuel, typically their second-largest cost line behind labor, so the roughly 7% crude jump flows almost dollar-for-dollar out of operating margin within the same quarter.
Hertz is down 57.6% since the beginning of the year, and at $2.22 per share, it is trading 71.6% below its 52-week high of $7.81 from April 2026. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Hertz’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $132.24.
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