Wall Street Impatient with Ford’s Way Forward

Ford Motor Co. is scheduled to release its earnings this week and the consensus among analysts is that the company will post a substantial loss that will underscore the failure so far of the company's turnaround plan, in the face of stiff competition and rising fuel prices.

Patience is absent from Wall Street's view on Ford. Moody's Investors Service cut the company's credit rating further into junk status Friday. In its announcement, Moody's said that it was apparent that the ongoing shift from big SUVs to cars was hurting the company's prospects for recovery.

With gasoline prices hovering near record levels, Moody's said the downgrade reflected its expectation that high fuel prices and the resulting shift away from highly profitable sport-utility vehicles would further damage the company's profits. During the first six months of 2006, Ford's sales of mid-size SUVs fell 24.7 percent and sales of large SUVs declined by 32.1 percent, Moody's noted.


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