Basis of Presentation

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Basis of Presentation [Abstract]

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements Disclosure [Text Block]

Basis of Presentation

The accompanying consolidated financial statements include the parent company, Heartland Express, Inc., and its subsidiaries, all of which are wholly owned. All material intercompany items and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. The accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements of Heartland Express, Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) have been prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by U.S. generally accepted accounting principles for complete financial statements. In the opinion of management, all normal, recurring adjustments considered necessary for a fair presentation have been included. The consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the audited consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes for the year ended December 31, 2011 included in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of the Company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 28, 2012. Interim results of operations are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the full year or any other interim periods. There were no changes to the Company's significant accounting policies during the nine month period ended September 30, 2012 other than detailed in the Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements below.

Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements

In June 2011, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued new accounting guidance which revises the manner in which companies present comprehensive income in their financial statements. The new guidance removes the presentation options previously allowed and requires companies to report components of comprehensive income as part of the consolidated statement of income or as a separate consolidated statement of comprehensive income. The revised guidance did not change the items that must be reported in other comprehensive income. The guidance was effective for the Company on January 1, 2012. Comprehensive income consists of net income and other comprehensive income (loss). Other comprehensive income (loss) refers to revenues, expenses, gains and losses that are not included in net income, but rather are recorded directly in stockholders' equity. The Company adopted this guidance on January 1, 2012. During the nine months ended September 30, 2012 there was $1.8 million of income recorded directly in stockholders' equity related to an unrealized gain on available for sale securities due to the reversal of a previously recorded reserve to adjust certain investments to estimated fair value. During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2011 there were no amounts recorded directly in stockholders' equity and therefore there was no difference between net income and comprehensive income for these two respective periods.

In September 2011 the FASB issued amendments to the guidance on testing goodwill for impairment. The new guidance provides an entity the option to first perform a qualitative assessment to determine whether it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount. If an entity determines that this is the case, it is required to perform the currently prescribed two-step goodwill impairment test to identify potential goodwill impairment and measure the amount of goodwill impairment loss to be recognized for the reporting unit (if any). If an entity determines that the fair value of a reporting unit is greater than its carrying amount, the two-step goodwill impairment test is not required. Annual impairment tests are performed by the Company in the third quarter of each year. The adoption of this updated authoritative guidance did not have an impact on the consolidated financial statements and there were no impairment charges recognized during the third quarter as a result of the Company's annual impairment tests.