Ford Reports Best Third Quarter Ever On Higher Prices And Lower Costs At Home

by Bertel Schmitt

October 30th, 2012 7:30 AM

ford reports best third quarter ever on higher prices and lower costs at home

Shaking off a $468 million loss in Europe, Ford reports better-than-expected profits for the third quarter.

Driving profits are higher vehicle prices and lower costs in North America. According to Reuters, Ford reported an operating profit of $2.2 billion for the quarter, up from $1.9 billion a year earlier.

It was the best third quarter ever for the automaker. In North America, Ford made $2.3 billion. Ford expects to lose at least $3 billion in Europe over the next two years.

#BertelSchmitt #Ford #Profits

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Jimmyy on Oct 30, 2012

What drives Ford profits: 1) Below market interest rates on loans subsidized by the Government; 2) Lack of domestic competition since the government owners of GM and Chrysler have fixed prices in order to pay UAW wages and benefits; 3) Lack of product investment as witnessed by near last place reliability rankings and poor packaging. Ford takes an older European sedan with back seat issues and introduces it as an all new Fusion.

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- Corntrollio on Oct 30, 2012
  
  So do you just go around making the back seat complaint everywhere that permits you to comment? You did it at least twice at TTAC and elsewhere too: http://backfires.caranddriver.com/forums/53/posts/463241?page=7 Looks like the fanbois showed up late as Chocolatedeath said. 1) below market interest rates are clearly unique to Ford and clearly do not help other carmakers 2) GM and Chrysler's labor costs are lower than Ford's, even according to the Heritage Foundation, so will you please share what you are smoking? 3) How is this an old Euro sedan? Ford of Europe did a lot of design work, and the same car is being launched in Europe (with different engine choices of course). It's also hard to argue there wasn't product investment. If you don't like Ford, fine, but at least don't make stuff up.
  
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Jimmyy on Oct 30, 2012

Sorry the facts hurt. Ford took billions of government subsidized loans from the Energy department. Ford took many billions of low interest rate CP paper from the Fed. Then, with all this government money, Ford goes on to produce products that rank near the bottom according to Consumer Reports. Makes me so proud to be an American. Then, there is the labor cost issue. All the domestics are ripping off the American public with price tags designed to support excessive UAW labor costs and pension plans ( union & salary ). Hard to understand how some low ranking salary or union worker gets a better pension than an RN. Then, garbage studies are produced to convince the public labor costs are not a problem. I am looking forward to the democrats being thrown out of office in 1 week. Then, we can get rid of the crony capitalism feeding Detroit.

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- Loser on Oct 30, 2012
  
  “products that rank near the bottom according to Consumer Reports” Jimmyy, Remember you said that Consumer Reports had been infiltrated by the Obama administration to make Toyota/Honda look bad. That was your spin on why CR did not recommended the past few Honda/Toyota’s tested. Are they to be trusted now because you agree with them this month? Have the Obama infiltrators been fired from CR? Or are the Obama infiltrators picking on Ford because they want GM stock to increase? So what way do you want it?
  
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- 86SN2001 on Oct 30, 2012
  
  Jimmy you are spot on. It's sad to see Ford fall again, but then they never really recovered from the late 90s and early 00s. The only difference is that there is a new goof running the ship.
  
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- Loser on Oct 31, 2012
  
  So Jimmyy you claim to work on Wall Street and have the nerve to complain about Ford taking out a loan they will pay back? Please tell me how that logic works.
  
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Loser on Oct 30, 2012

Glad to see Ford is doing well. Not a big fan of the new Fusion though, IMHO it was a mistake not to offer a V-6.

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Jim brewer on Oct 30, 2012

"Interesting" is a good way of putting it. Their passenger cars are kind of a hodge podge of random vehicles--not the carefully developed ever so incremental niche products that GM made famous. Personally, I love it; Ford is like an engineer's wet dream. A more opinionated car company would be hard to find outside of Morgan. But that's not an unalloyed blessing to the consumer. Sad fact is Ford continues to be way too dependent on its light trucks no matter what it does.

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