July 25, 2008
Buyers Say F-that to F-series Pickups
Ford Has $8.7 Billion Loss, Shifts Away From Trucks
“The company’s European auto unit saw its profit more than double to $582 million. Net income at the South American unit increased 52 percent to $388 million. The automaker lost $15.3 billion in the past two years, mostly because of deficits in North America.”
A friend in Beijing just bought a new Ford Mondeo and is very happy with it. The Chinese are generally against buying Japanese cars, and prefer to buy European (Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, etc.) and American (Buick (GM), Ford, Chrysler, etc.) makes.
Here’s a longer-term view of Ford (F). Stock price is back to 1984 levels and is down a wee 93% off the 1999 high.
Cat: | Time: 9:52 am (utc+8)
July 25th, 2008 at 10:24 am
chairman:
I see that you use bloomberg for your trades. Does that cost you like $1000 or so /month. That is a huge expense unless you make big bucks…
July 25th, 2008 at 11:23 am
gurlate: I do not use Bloomberg for my trades. I use BB in the office where I work as a “consultant.” It costs $1800 a month, so yes, you have to be managing some serious dough to have one. It’s the main reason I didn’t quit this job long ago, lol.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I think cars sold overseas by the big 3 are generally better than their counterpart in US. Smaller engine, better fuel efficiency and sharper styling. Don’t understand why they don’t bring the models into US.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:29 am
@drummania — They are beginning to switch (all be it too late) and bring some of their overseas product home. I know Ford is for sure. The real problem (up till now) hasn’t been so much the product (because Americans have loved big cars), but the fact that the “big 3″ have resisted “flex” manufacturing … something that Toyota, for example, embraced decades ago.
It takes far too long for US plants to shift their production lines to different platforms. A buddy of mine has worked for GM, Ford & Visteon over the years and has talked about flex manufacturing since the 1980’s. They dragged their feet.
They are getting it (see this article from 2003), but they’ll just end up chasing their tail. By the time Ford & GM flip their product mix to small vehicles, everyone will want trucks again.
Groundhog day.
The other problem is American culture. Americans look down on people that own small cars. Another friend of mine still drives a huge GM SUV and is always riding the bummer of smaller cars … purposefully intimidating them. When he’s over for drinks, he’s constantly ripping on men that own small cars and calls them a failure for driving “chick cars” (of course, I own a smaller vehicle, so I chuckle).
He’s not alone. Many people associate large cars/trucks and houses with “success” and small cars with failure or under-achievement. American culture must change and rid itself of this “bigger is success” attitude.
Or perish.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Ford ,GM, Lehman and others are now nice low price ,high volume trading equities. Even a dummy can make money!
July 26th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Regarding Buick in China, I saw on TV the other night that GM sells more Buicks in China than in the US. Eighty years ago, China’s last emperor drove a Buick as did Zhou Enlai (the No. 2 guy to Mao) later. According to the report, the name has a long history on the mainland. Now if GM could do as good in North America, I’d be rich! ;-)