Big Trucking’s secret trick to impress Wall Street — and slam mom-and-pop fleets

America’s biggest trucking companies have lots of used tractors and trailers. Some of those companies quietly made tens of millions of dollars in 2021 and the first three months of this year by selling old trucks in their fleets. “Gain on sale/disposal from property or equipment” is a sleepy, oft-ignored line of any company’s quarterly or annual financial statement. As my colleague Todd Maiden wrote last year, even trucking insiders don’t pay much attention to it in normal cycles.