Analyst Forecasts on Ford Are Weak

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 14, 9:15AM EDT

Quick Read

Wall Street anticipates that Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) stock will fall.
Sales of electric vehicles, meant to be the company’s future, have been unimpressive.

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Analyst Forecasts on Ford Are Weak — © Victoria Gnatiuk / iStock via Getty Images

According to Yahoo, 25 analysts cover Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F | F Price Prediction) stock. Almost all of them rate it as Hold, Underperform, or Sell. The average price target is $10.37, below the current price of less than $12. Wall Street thinks Ford’s stock has further to fall.

Ford sales have been relatively good, at least in the United States. Overall sales in the first half of the year were up 6.2% to 1,113,386. However, when broken down by engine type and model, the numbers were less impressive. Electric vehicle (EV) sales fell 11.8% to 38,988. Sales of the Mustang Mach-E were down 2% to 21,785. Sales of the F-150 Lightning were down 16.7% to 13,029. CEO Jim Farley said Ford has started to turn its attention to hybrids because they are more in line with what customers want. In the meantime, he has wasted tens of billions of dollars on EV development.

Ford is still a gasoline-powered pickup company. F-Series sales rose 17.2% in the first half to 412,848. That makes the model 37% of Ford’s total U.S. sales. The smaller Maverick had sales of 86,056, up 11.6%. That makes it Ford’s second-best-selling vehicle. Together, the two were 45% of Ford’s U.S. sales.

Ford’s sales outside the U.S. are extremely modest, particularly in China, which is the world’s largest EV market.

Farley has described Chinese EVs as an existential threat. Without 100% tariffs on Chinese vehicles, they would crush Ford to pieces. Farley says these Chinese EVs are highly advanced technically compared to American-made EVs. Farley has driven them in China. Ford is probably years behind in an effort to match them. A business built around tariffs is hardly a business at all.

The Trump administration will almost certainly continue to protect Ford and GM in their home market. However, the Chinese, led by BYD, are selling cars, or will, in every major market in the world. The exception is Europe, where tariffs are high as well.

If Wall Street’s research is meant to look at the future and not the present, the pessimism is extreme.

The Best-Selling SUV in Each State

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.