We recently compiled a list of the Why These 15 Transportation Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far in 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) stands against the other transportation stocks.

Trump’s tariffs threat is making the broader market more volatile, but some stocks in the transportation industry are benefiting from it as frontloading increases and shipping rates surge. Moreover, the past few years have been solid for most types of transportation stocks in the energy industry due to shipping getting more expensive after February 2022 and even more expensive as using the Suez Canal became risky in late 2023.

Obviously, it’s not just energy transportation stocks that stand to benefit. Airline stocks have struggled recently, but as interest rates come down lower, some are already starting to post solid gains. 2025 could be a breakout year for the transportation industry as a whole. As such, it’s worth looking into those that have delivered the most gains so far in 2025.

Methodology

For this article, I screened the top-performing transportation software stocks year-to-date. Stocks that I have covered recently will be excluded from this list.

I will also mention the number of hedge fund investors in these stocks. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds invest in? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).

A bird's eye view of a long freight train rumbling along the tracks.

Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 47

Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) is a raw materials and finished goods rail transportation company.

The stock is up significantly so far in 2025 as it posted solid Q4 performance and optimism from the company’s CEO. Q4 EPS came in at $3.23 per share up from $2.32 in in the prior year. Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) is running "tighter and faster." The operating ratio improved to 65.8% for the full year.

The company has a significant capital expenditure plan of $2.2 billion for 2025, and while it did pause share buybacks due to the East Palestine incident, it plans to resume that too.

The consensus price target of $276.11 implies 7.9% upside.

Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) stock is up 9.66% year-to-date.

Overall NSC ranks 14th on our list of the transportation stocks that are skyrocketing so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of NSC as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NSC but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

 

READ NEXT: Why These 15 Hardware Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far in 2025 and Why These 15 Software Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far in 2025

 

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.