Chrysler: Losing Money Is Never Good News

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

The pig was out at Chrysler and so was the red lipstick. The floundering US car company presented the case that its $197 million loss in the first quarter was perfectly fine.The firm also said that revenue was up 3% for the fourth quarter of last year to $9.687 billion, leaving aside comparisons with the same period a year ago.

Chrysler said it had an operating profit for the period of $143 million based on what it called “A reconciliation of U.S. GAAP Net Loss to Modified EBITDA and Operating Loss for the period from January 1, 2010 to March 31, 2010.” GAAP doesn’t mean much any more.

“Worldwide vehicle sales were 334,000 units for Q1 2010, compared to 318,000 in Q4 2009. Improved sales were driven by the Company’s U.S. market share which increased to 9.1 percent, from 8.1 percent in Q4 2009,” Chrysler said. There are a number of auto analysts who would dispute that number. Edmunds puts the Chrysler share at 8.4% in March, down from 10.8% in February and 11.8% in March 2009.

Math?

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618