Ford Earnings and Sales - New CEO issues or true wait and see?

[G. David Felt]

G. David Felt

Alternative Energy writer

www.cheersandgears.com

 

Ford Earnings and Sales - New CEO issues or a wait and see attitude?

 

Ford stock has tumbled 7% since they released news that 2014 sales would be neutral or down for the year based on weaker sales in Europe and South America. Ford also has stated that North America will be less profitable in 2014 due to investments in new technology and expect operating margins to be 8-10% lower than expected. Stock has gone from a high of 18 dollars in July to just above 14 dollars a share now.

 

Is this due to Alan Mulally leaving? An inexperienced new CEO?

 

Total auto sales for 2014 are expected to be between 16 - 17 million new auto's. Far stronger than Fords prediction of 15.9 million. Ford has/had many new auto launches this year and a radical change for the F150 product line.

 

Is this just a lull of reduced profits to clean out inventory ahead of a banner year for new auto sales that will pay off for years ahead and which would indicate a buyers time for Ford stock? Or is this a indication that not all is right in the Ford camp and bigger issues are on the horizon and Alan fled before having to deal with the problems?

 

Sounds off on what you think about Ford Earnings and Sales and the direction the company will go in the short and long term.

 

Stock Info

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Investors Relations

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[Drew Dowdell]

most of this was in place before Mulally left

[G. David Felt]

So Drew then do you think this is his legacy of where he left product and sales? If so that would tend to tell me that he did not do a very good job of building a bullpen of mgrs that could take over and keep things growing.

[Drew Dowdell]

I think he left lincoln on life support with no real road to recovery.  He let the F-150 and related SUVs grow stale on the vine.  He lead the infotainment war by having one of the best early entries into the field only to leave it to rot on the vine with no real updates....  He made sure the small/mid car areas were taken care of with new platforms.... One Ford is a laudable goal.

 

Overall I give him a mix grade

[Z-06]

I have always expressed reservation of Mulally even when he was the CEO. I consider him to be a Smoke and Screen kind of guy. All he did was create perception of how good Ford is. To his favor he had limited resources as well.

 

If Fields does not follow his footsteps or take genuine measure to fix Ford, we will start to see chinks in Mulally's armor cropping up.

[G. David Felt]

Ford is overloaded with Debt and I wonder how long before they have to declare bankruptcy and clean house of legacy pensions that cannot be maintained and debt that is killing them. Ford should have done what GM and Chrysler did to clean house and start over.