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Posted
Oct 02 2009, 07:31 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Rumors, credible rumors, are beginning to circulate in the car industry and the automotive press, that Chrysler may not make it another year primarily due to its falling sales and growing financial losses at partner Fiat.
Chrysler sold a 62,197 cars in September, down 42% from the same month last year. The figure was down from 93,222 in August when traffic to dealers was pushed up by the ”cash for clunkers” program.
Chrysler’s problems may only be beginning and, if so, Fiat, the ”managing partner” among Chrysler’s owners may not be able to keep the American company intact.
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Posted
Sep 01 2009, 09:49 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Don't be fooled by the headlines. Yes, the cash-for-clunkers program helped Ford (F) boost sales a remarkable 17% in August from a year ago. It was the first time since 2006 that sales went up for two months straight, The New York Times reports.
For a brief few weeks, the auto industry sprang back to life. People flooded into dealerships, buying cars into the wee hours of the morning and taking advantage of rebates of as much as $4,500. Bing: More on cash-for-clunkers
But as soon as cash-for-clunkers ended, dealerships turned back into ghost towns. “Dealers are saying as soon as the program ended everything stopped dead,” industry consultant John Casesa told Bloomberg. Don't expect next month's sales to be as cheery.
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Posted
Aug 13 2009, 08:27 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article was written by Minyanville's Scott Reeves
If your nautical experience is limited to the Staten Island Ferry, here’s a chance to broaden your horizons: Rent Rupert Murdoch’s 183-foot sailboat.
Gawker says the Rosehearty -- not to be confused with the "Citizen Kane" Rosebud -- can be yours for a mere $310,000 per week.
The sailboat has an aluminum hull -- a downer for traditionalists. But the “stunning” interior is the work of French designer Christian Liagre. On the other hand, do you want to be seen floating around in something designed by the folks who gave us the Maginot Line and Le Car?
Bing: Rupert Murdoch
Renting the boat would be strictly business and wouldn’t get you entrée to Page Six, the New York Post’s famous (and must-read) gossip page. But there might be a few back issues of The Poopsheet of Record lying around for your edification.
Rupert’s splendiferous boat comes with 3 white sails and opens up other out-of-this-world possibilities. How ‘bout renting a sports hero’s persona? It might be possible. There’s no guarantee the babes will follow, but it probably beats life under fluorescent lights in a cubicle.
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Posted
Aug 07 2009, 03:54 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
GM says it will sell 1.4 million cars in China this year. It sold about 180,000 in the US in July. The critical difference between its costs in the two markets is that many of GM’s Chinese vehicles are made in facilities owned by joint ventures with local car companies. Others are produced in manufacturing facilities with low labor costs. And, GM’s sales are growing in China and dropping in the US.
GM’s expenses in it home market may be falling because it has gone through Chapter 11. Unfortunately, the firm’s sales in its home market were down about 20% last month, so its restructuring cost improvements may end up doing little good.
The No.1 US auto company might be better off setting up joint ventures with other large car companies with factories in America to produce its vehicles. Ford (F), Toyota (TM), and Chrysler already have substantial manufacturing capacity some of which is underutilized.
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Posted
Aug 05 2009, 04:01 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
General Motors' new chairman, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., says one of his major goals is to make certain that the No. 1 U.S. car company stays No.1. GM will find it very hard to measure up.
In an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal, Whitacre said being No. 1 is “the position we should strive for… (as) an American company that employs hundreds of thousands of people…We just want to be No. 1.”
If wishes were horses, all the beggars would ride. GM is losing ground to the competition at an alarming rate. In July it sold 187,582 vehicles, down 20% from the same period a year ago. Toyota (TM) sold 174,872, down 11% and Ford (F) sold 158,354, up 2%. The spread between the top three manufacturers has become remarkably small.
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Posted
Aug 03 2009, 03:57 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Ford (F) made two audacious decisions recently, decisions made in an industry where audacity died when Lee Iaccoca left the business. William Clay Ford, Jr., the company’s CEO since 2001, went outside the industry and brought in Boeing (BA) executive Alan Mulally to replace him in September 2006. Mulally may have been a good executive but he was not a “car man”, the kind of manager who had been running The Big Three for years.
Mulally, in turn, bet the company in order to take advantage of the opportunity to fill its treasury later in 2006 just before the auto market was swamped by one of the largest downturns in history. Ford got $23 billion in convertible notes and a revolving credit line for pledging an extraordinary amount of the firm’s assets.
All three of the major credit agencies cut their views of Ford once the capital infusion was announced. The majority of auto analysts believed that Ford had given too much for too little.
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Posted
Jul 28 2009, 05:45 PM
by
Louis Navellier
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Second quarter earnings season is in full bloom, and so far, Wall Street has been treated to a substantial number of better-than-expected reports from some of the highest profile companies. Traders certainly love the latest batch of earnings news, and their buying has bid up the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average past the 9,000 mark for the first time since the beginning of January.
So, all must be well in Earnings Land, right? Well, not quite.
Although the headlines are screaming about how companies are beating their earnings estimates, little newsprint is being devoted to this quarter's real story. That story is that revenues for many corporations are way down year over year, and more importantly, their top-line revenues are often coming in below Street estimates
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Posted
Jul 24 2009, 05:39 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Dow 9,000!
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 9,000 for the first time since January. It marks a rally of over 2,500 points, or almost 39%, in a span of a little more than four months, according to The New York Times.
The underlying belief behind Thursday’s nearly 200-point performance is that companies are reporting better-than-expected profits, with companies like Intel (INTC), 3M (MMM) and even Ford (F) beating expectations.
But just as the Dow reached that psychological level, earnings results from Microsoft (MSFT) and American Express (AXP) disappointed investors. Strategists are calling for a correction in the markets, with some economists warning that a failed economic recovery could even lead to a double-dip recession wiping out stock market gains.
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Posted
Jul 23 2009, 12:27 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Ford (F) was the only major automaker to reject government loans -- a noble decision, but one that put it at a tremendous disadvantage. Without a government lifeline, it would be that much harder for Ford to get through this economic recession.
But Ford is doing it, and even reported a surprise second-quarter profit of $2.3 billion Thursday. That ends a streak of four quarterly losses for the No. 2 carmaker. Granted, that profit came once Ford excluded some debt-reduction moves -- like swapping stock and cash to cut its debt by some $10 billion -- but it nonetheless shows nice improvement at the company.
Looking back at Ford over the last year, it seems the company has been remarkably astute at maneuvering through the recession. Here's what it has done:
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Posted
Jul 10 2009, 07:35 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Updated at 5:09 p.m. ET
The “best” parts of General Motors were transferred Friday morning to a newly created company owned almost two-thirds by taxpayers. The federal government will end up stuffing $50 million into the new entity in the hope that a smaller and less debt-heavy GM can make money in the ravaged domestic car market.
Investors seemed to think so, and the announcement set up a bizarre day of trading in the stock that now represents GM, GMGMQ. It rose 37% during the day. Yet in the new world of GM, these shares are worthless, as Barron's explained in this report.They don't represent the new entity.
That new entity faces a difficult future
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