A couple months ago, I opened a position in Ford Motor, purely as a tariff play, as my analysis says Ford is best positioned to profit from protectionist tariffs. Otherwise, I would not touch Ford with the proverbial ten foot pole.
GM announced a “better than expected” Q4 several days ago. Today, I started wondering when Ford would announce. Mr Google said Ford was scheduled to announce earnings on January 22nd. “That’s odd”, I thought, “the local Detroit media always makes a big deal out of automaker earnings, and I don’t remember hearing a thing about Ford”. Looked on Yahoo Finance, which has a table of previous quarter earnings “expectations” and reality. No entry for Ford’s Q4. Looked on Ford’s Investor Relations page. They announce tomorrow, the 5th.
One other thing. I have not really studied it, but seems that good reports are released in the morning, and bad reports are released in the afternoon. GM released their “better than expected” report at 8:30am. Ford announces tomorrow at 5pm.
I could be running away from a shadow, but my primary reason for buying Ford was the tariffs that didn’t happen. So, now I need to look at fundamentals: Ford is farther down the Welchian rat hole than GM. Ford is failing miserably in both China and the EU. Ford, together with VW, now lead the world in warranty claims, because they build overpriced poo. Ford reported an 8.8% sales increase in Q4, vs a 21% increase for GM.
Well. There you have it. We will see if I’m a nervous Nellie, or blessed with precognition, in 27 hours. Whatever happens, I will sleep well tonight, because I left Ford by the side of the road.
Steve
