Detroit Ostrich Farm: Ford Sales To Drop

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 30, 12:39PM EST

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One of Ford’s (F) senior executives told the press that its share of the US market would drop from its current 17% to as low as 14% next year. Ford has been tempering expectations for its turnaround for some time. But, this was a company that had a 26% share ten years ago, well after Japanese cars hit the US market.

Ford pointed out that the recent trend that saw pick-up and SUV sales bounce up was due to incentives more than the fall in gas prices. It also said the part of the drop in its share was based on stepping away from unprofitable fleet sales. Wall St. has to wonder why Ford stepped into that business to begin with.

Unfortunately, Ford is not talking anything UP. As time passes, the pessimism about the company’s future becomes almost palpable. At many other companies, management tempers expectations so that they can be reached or exceeded. At Ford, expectations are merely lowered so that they can be lowered further later.

Ford’s need to borrow $18 million is another sign that things are not going well. The company’s current cash balance of $23.6 billion (September 30 10-Q) would be adequate to get the automaker through its "Way Forward" restructuring.

But, that would be too much to ask.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

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.