Ford’s Shares Dragged Down by Stellantis Warning

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 30, 6:40AM EDT

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Ford’s Shares Dragged Down by Stellantis Warning — © Carl Court / Getty Images News via Getty Images

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Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA | STLA Price Prediction) warned that its financial results for the year would be worse than expected.
Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) investors worry it will be the next global automaker to disappoint the market.
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Global carmaker Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA), the parent of Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge, warned that its financial results for the year would be much worse than expected. Volkswagen posted similar warnings recently. The Stellantis news dragged its stock down 13%. Shares of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), a direct competitor to Stellantis, immediately dropped almost 3%. That means Ford’s stock has fallen about 14% this year.

Daunting Challenges

According to Reuters, Stellantis management said it would burn through $5 billion to $11 billion this year. Previously, it forecasted it would be cash-positive. Costs to revive its U.S. sales and competition from China were listed as causes.

The challenge faced by global car companies in China is staggering. International manufacturers, including Stellantis, are losing market share inside China. Today, it has a market share of only 1% of the world’s largest car market. Ford’s figure has also fallen recently. Among the reasons is the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in China. Local manufacturers like BYD dominate the sector.

Over time, the second and more daunting challenge is that Chinese car companies have started exporting EVs. China EVs can have price tags as low as $15,000. Legacy car companies and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) have yet to produce EVs from which they can profit at a $25,000 MSRP. Tesla plans to introduce a new model with a price close to that. The only reason Chinese car companies do not compete in Europe and the United States is high tariffs. It is impossible to determine how long those will last.

Costs are another reason Stellantis says its financials have weakened. This has also been a challenge across the industry. Volkswagen may close plants in Germany for the first time in its history. Ford recently said a new UAW contract would cost it $8.8 billion.

Ford investors have watched as its competition cut forecasts. Wall Street is worried Ford will be the next to disappoint the market.

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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.