In reply to dean1484 :
There are some who connect dots. Ford lost money they expected to earn. What does that mean for the future?
Will the shortage be made up or is this the new normal?
I'll watch what happens the 3rd week of October. But forecasts by other major auto manufacturers should help give me some insight.
So is the media spreading doom and gloom or forecasting. It's kind of like the weather. They study the charts and read the data but sometimes they get it right.
STM317
PowerDork
9/21/22 8:32 a.m.
Fueled by Caffeine said:
See fedexs recent release
Similar result in stock price, but FedEx saw demand slump while Ford's issue was supply side. There still seems to be tons of demand for Ford's products, they're just struggling to make them as quickly and profitably as they'd hoped. So FedEx was used as a barometer for overall economic activity (slowing down), and Ford was used as a barometer for inflation's impact on profitability (going up).
In reply to frenchyd :
You are corect I am just trying to make the point that they did not loose a billion dollars they just did not make a billion dollars that they projected they would make. It matters for investors a lot. Loosing 5 percent of your investment value sucks (but you can take the Wright off at tax time). It is not doom and gloom for ford. I look at it as a market correction that virchally all company's are experiencing. I am sure the other auto manufacturers will most likely take the same hit.
The cynical me thinks that they could have made the projections intentionally a bit more optimistic back when things were all but shut down to prop up the economy and the value of there stock knowing they were going to take a hit later when things were better and they could take the hit with less financial impact. Just pushing it back a year means they saved what ever inflation is on a billion dollars. They are going to take the hit either way. Back when the projections are made had they been lower there stock takes a hit or they miss there projected profit estimate and it takes a hit now. Just that taking it now means the value of the dollar has lost 8 percent (or what ever inflation is) so in effect they actually are reporting a loss that has 8 percent less value than it did when the projection was made. Or another way of looking at my tinfoil hat theory is they took a 80* million dollar lower projected loss by telling people now than had they published projected lower profits in the first place because the value of the dollar is less. The people that do this stuff are really smart. I would not be surprised at all if they manipulate things like this by a couple points. It is with in an acceptable margin of error so the SEC while probably not happy really can not go after them.
* Check my math. I may have skipped a decimal point as I did it all on the fly. No calculators were harmed in the calculation of that number. 
In reply to dean1484 :
The real smart investors figure the falsehood out by indicators. Like did they order enough delivery trucks or parts. How about labor? A billion dollars worth of vehicles will require X Amount of workers etc.
Of course all that digging for information takes time to collect and analyze. Plus a pretty deep background in accounting. But without it it's not investing, its just gambling.
In reply to frenchyd :
In 2021, ford had over $130,000,000,000 in sales. And about 185,000 employees. That was a down year in sales.
Also, there has been years where expenses exceeded sales. Normally that costs the ceo their job.
ddavidv
UltimaDork
9/22/22 8:01 a.m.
Those interested in the industry may find this video interesting: What makes the auto industry so challenging? The author used to work in the financial part of GM and provides a unique perspective of what it takes to make a profit on vehicles.
Some evidence of Fords issues (as noted, other manufacturers have similar issues). Looking pretty extreme:
Ford has been parking unfinished F150 trucks at the speedway since the spring and the number of trucks at the track has only continued to grow. Just look at how many trucks are sitting in the parking lots this month as Ford waits to get the parts it needs to finish the trucks and ship them off to buyers and dealers. As of this week, the unfinished trucks are taking up a majority of the track's parking spaces per satellite images.
https://finance.yahoo.com/sports/the-inactive-kentucky-speedway-is-now-a-storage-facility-for-unfinished-ford-trucks-170607517.html
I have bought Ford stock at many points in my life, and if it drops much more we will accumulate even more.
Last week I saw a bunch of car haulers full of new Tesla's ,
This was on the 405 freeway near the Santa Monica freeway ,
no idea where they were headed ,
Does Tesla also ship by rail ? 10 cars a truckload would take a long time to supply SoCal ,
