Ford Finishes 2016 With Low-Energy Performance, In-line With Expectations

Ford Motors reported earnings Thursday morning and they were so uninspiring that the stock opened up lower—shares in Fords (sic) are down more than -3% in early Thursday trade [ticker $F].

They beat analyst expectation on the top line:

Ford Reports Q4 Rev. $38.7B vs. Est. $35.2B

Digging through the obfuscated accounting, and using a bit of elbow grease, the company reported bottom-line earnings in line with analyst expectations:

Fourth-quarter net loss attributable to Ford was $783 million or $0.20 per share, compared to net income of $1.87 billion or $0.47 per share in the prior-year period.

The latest quarter’s results were impacted by special items totaling $0.50 per share, including year-end pension  and OPEB remeasurement loss.

Ford had said earlier in January that it expects to record a pre-tax remeasurement loss of about $3.0 billion in the  year ended December 31, 2016 related to pension plans and other post-retirement employee benefits or OPEB plans.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.30 per share, compared to $0.58 per share in the same  period last year.

On average, 18 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.31 per share for the quarter. Analysts’ estimates typically exclude special items.

Being invested in the once great FoMoCo has been a dead-money endeavor for the last three years, aside from a tiny dividend:

Despite being well-shoed heading into the Great Recession, and potentially being in a position to benefit from the insolvency of their two biggest competitors (Government Motors and Chrysler), they were boned by the ‘too-big-to-fail’ mentality.

So despite doing everything right, equity holders have been bag holders through this whole kerfuffle.  It does not seem to be a trend that’s changing anytime soon.

OVERALL–Neutral, better investments exist in the auto industry

 

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