EXPD vs RXO: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?

Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

Reading it: EXPD is the cheaper of the two on forward earnings, but cheaper is not the same as better. Pair the valuation with growth (how far the forward P/E sits below the trailing P/E) and risk (beta) before you decide.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. EXPD and RXO share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined EXPD and RXO exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Expeditors International of Washington, based in Bellevue, has done the same thing since 1979: it arranges the movement of other companies' cargo without owning the aircraft or the ships. It buys space from airlines and ocean carriers in bulk, consolidates customer shipments into that space, and charges the shipper more than it paid the carrier. Sitting alongside the forwarding business is a large customs brokerage and trade compliance arm that files import entries, classifies goods and computes duty, plus order management, warehousing and domestic transcontinental trucking. Roughly 20,400 people work out of wholly-owned offices rather than franchises or agents, and the pay model is unusual: branch and executive bonuses come out of a fixed share of operating income, so the cost base falls almost as fast as profits when the cycle turns.

Full EXPD guide

RXO, Inc. was created in November 2022 when XPO spun off its asset-light North American brokered transportation business. The company does not own tractors or trailers. It sells capacity to shippers, buys it from independent carriers, and keeps the spread, which is why revenue is large (~$5.7 billion trailing twelve months) and margins are thin. Truck brokerage is roughly 74% of revenue, with two complementary businesses making up the rest: Last Mile (~18%), which delivers heavy goods like appliances and furniture into homes, and Managed Transportation (~8%), which runs outsourced freight departments for large shippers under multi-year contracts. In September 2024 RXO paid about $1.025 billion for Coyote Logistics from UPS, roughly doubling brokerage volume and moving RXO into the top three North American truck brokers behind C.H. Robinson and Total Quality Logistics. Management has said Coyote synergies run to at least $50 million.

Full RXO guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• EXPD drivers: AI hardware is filling freighter decks; Tariff complexity pays the customs desk.
• RXO drivers: Truckload capacity leaving the market; Operating leverage on a fixed cost base.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: Freight is a rate cycle, and rate cycles end. For RXO, the largest near-term risk is legal rather than cyclical.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick EXPD if you believe its drivers more; RXO if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the EXPD and RXO guides.

EXPD. The gap between the two revenue lines is the whole exercise. Measured against ~$12.04B of gross revenue the stock looks like 2x sales, which would be cheap for a business earning roughly 41% on equity; measured against the ~$3.94B of net revenue Expeditors actually keeps, the same price is about 6x. Enterprise value near $23.2B against ~$1.18B of trailing operating income is close to 20x EBIT, and both the numerator and the denominator reflect an airfreight market running unusually hot through 2026.

RXO. Price-to-earnings does not apply while the company is loss-making, so RXO is usually valued on EV to a normalized EBITDA figure, and the gap between trough EBITDA (roughly $120 million trailing) and what management thinks a recovered cycle looks like is the entire argument. The stock traded between ~$10 and ~$30 over the past year and roughly doubled in 2026 before falling back on the broker-liability news, which tells you the market is repricing the cycle assumption rather than the current results. February 2026 refinancing pushed the senior notes to May 2031 at 6.375% from 7.500%, upsized to $400 million, leaving ~$386 million of available liquidity.

Headline figures (approximate, August 2026): EXPD shows gross revenue (ttm, includes freight paid to carriers) ~$12.04B, up from ~$11.07B in fiscal 2025, net revenue (ttm, gross revenue less transportation expense) ~$3.94B, after ~$8.10B paid out to airlines and ocean lines, operating income (ttm) ~$1.18B, about 30% of net revenue and about 10% of gross revenue, diluted eps (ttm) and p/e ~$6.88, about 27x at ~$186 per share; RXO shows revenue (ttm) ~$5.7B, net income (ttm) ~-$105M (~-$0.62 per share), adjusted ebitda (q1 2026) ~$6M on ~$1.43B revenue, market cap ~$3.6B (~$22 per share).

EXPD and RXO are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined EXPD and RXO exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.