Last quarter, they were so happy to announce that they turned a surprise profit. I wrote about it last month. Now it seems that they are going back on their pledge to be profitable in 2009, much to everyone but my own surprise. I guess high gas prices do matter after all.
"In a statement, Ford said rising prices for commodities, particularly steel, and an accelerating consumer shift from larger trucks and sport-utility vehicles would make it impossible to meet a key milestone in its efforts to turn around its money-losing North American operations."
Weren't higher commodity price forseeable? Don't they have economists and purchase agents who help them figure this stuff out? We're they the last people to know that steel has gotten more expensive, and that high gas prices were causing people to shift away from the SUVs and large trucks that are the only things that Americans still want to buy from Ford? How many restructuring plans will there be? It seems that every 18 months, they're going back to the drawing board.
Still, some observers still think that Ford is the best off of the Big Three. In a sense, he's right. Ford is the least tied to North America of the big Three. Their dealer network is the smaller than the other two.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No. It's Kirk Kerkorian upping his stake in Ford.
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