Ford going the way of GM?

Ford, at least, is running a profit. It has excess capacity to dispose of, in order to become more efficient. My portfolio includes Ford, because I think the company is on the right track. Can't say the same for GM.

 

Elijah, divest yourself of any wholly owned American auto or any other highly unionized Co. The unions have destroyed their competitiveness in the market, and the stock is going to fall.

Unions long ago spent their usefulness, and have served no one but themselves.

 

If Ford and GM built better cars, they wouldn't be in trouble, and there would not be a need to blame it on the racism scapegoat that is the Japanese auto industry.

 

The American automakers and the unions still conduct themselves as adversaries for the most part, much as lawyers conduct themselves according to an adversarial process in the courtroom. This is an outmoded business model which has been disposed of in many businesses, particularly those of the Japanese. Until the companies and the workers put aside their adversarial stance and begin to work for their common success the American auto industry will continue to decline. They better hurry, neither GM or Ford has much time left!

 

This is a quarter of Ford's worldwide staff being cut which surprised me greatly. In Australia, the current model Ford Falcon is a huge improvement, and considerably better than the GM Holden Commodore which is its competitor. They have increased their sales and are doing reasonably well. The Ford Falcon is a large family car that is rear wheel drive that comes in a 6Cyl, 6Cyl Turbo or V8 and if you wish to, you can order one that does not have a gas tank as such, but runs on LPG - Liquid Petroleum Gas which costs about half the price of Petrol.

What surprised me yesterday was to see that the new model Citroen has a fuel consumption ratio of 4.4L of Diesel per 100km, that would be about one gallon to 60miles in imperial measure. That is less than the Toyota Prius which runs to 5.5L per 100km.

It seems that both the Japanese Car makers and the European makers - Renault, Citroen, Peuguot are investing heavilly into new technology which is paying dividends. Ford and GM need to be into that also, or they will be left behind.

 

Yea right, it's all the unions fault.

 

No, it's not entirely the union's fault; but an objective analysis of union vs. non-union companies shows that those straddled with union contracts are at a disadvantage. Just look at the auto, airline, steel, and mining industries, for example. They're mostly unionized, and non-competitive vs. foreign, non-union companies. The only way these companies have been able to return to some semblance of competitiveness is to ditch the union contracts through bankruptcy, which hurts everybody involved. At least in Europe, the unions realize this, and are conceding real reforms in order to save their companies and their jobs.

I don't hold any stock for long -- I'm a trader, not an investor. The market is too volatile to hold anything long-term, and my investment objectives are too demanding to hold a stock for a long period of time. And Ford is up nearly 10% in the last 3 days