Ford sold 507,395 vehicles in the third quarter. Down 6.6% year-over-year. The company issued a press release to announce this fact. They beat Hyundai for third place in a market where nobody wins and the prize is getting to fire more workers in six months.
Hyundai tried to overtake them. Failed. Ford retained the bronze medal in a competition where first place goes to whoever loses the least amount of money per unit sold. Somewhere in Dearborn a middle manager got promoted for this.
The technical analysis here is simple. Sales went down. The stock will do whatever it was going to do anyway because this information has the predictive power of a weather forecast from last week. Retail traders will scan the headline, see "fends off," assume it means something bullish, and buy weekly calls. They will expire worthless. This is the circle of life.
Third place. Ford fought hard to remain third. They deployed strategies. They ran promotions. They probably offered zero percent financing to anyone with a pulse and a pay stub from 2019. All to secure the right to tell shareholders they are still more relevant than Hyundai, a company that makes cars people actually want to own after the warranty expires.
The headline uses "fends off" like Ford was in a knife fight. They sold trucks. Hyundai sold slightly fewer trucks and sedans. Nobody fended anything. One number was bigger than another number. That is the entire story.
Next quarter Ford will sell a different number of vehicles and issue another press release and the stock will move based on whether Jerome Powell had coffee that morning. But sure, let's all pretend the third quarter sales figure was the missing piece of your discounted cash flow model.
Photo by on Unsplash
Leave a Comment