Ford surprises with strong earnings report

Helped by a lightened debt load, Ford Motor Co. posted a surprise second-quarter profit of $2.8 billion today, following the worst loss in company history a year earlier. Shares rose 8 percent.

The net profit ends a string of four straight quarterly losses for the nation’s second-largest automaker, which has gained U.S. market share at the expense of crosstown rivals Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co., both of which spent time under bankruptcy court supervision. Ford last went into the black in the first quarter of 2008, with net profit of $70 million.

However, excluding its debt reduction and other items, Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford would have reported a quarterly loss, though smaller than Wall Street expected.

Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said the improved second-quarter results are a sign that the company’s cost cuts and emphasis on new products are paying off. He stuck to Ford’s earlier prediction that it would return to annual profitability in 2011.

(Via Chron)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regarding the Barry Manilow concert in Coral Gables

Image
[ Editor's note ] Three monumental things have happened to me at the BankUnited Center. In 2004, my high school held its graduation ceremony there. In 2008, I heard presidential nominee Barack Obama speak about the future. And this past Saturday night, I saw the incomparable Barry Manilow perform in concert. To say that Barry remains every bit the superstar I was hoping for is putting it mildly. At 67 years young, he brought all the magic, the smiles, and the bandstand boogie he's famous for and then some. Funny, talented and charmingly self-deprecating, Barry Manilow remains without equal. Admittedly, the night started off rather poorly. Barry’s opening act was a man named Gerry McCambridge who has allegedly been wowing audiences at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas since 2005. As the creative force and inspiration behind the TV show The Mentalist , McCambridge's schtick is to do clever things with numbers. Honestly, I've never thought that doing anything with numbers w...
Read more

Regarding Steve Grand at Market Days

Image
Today, in the unlikeliest place imaginable, a musician restored my faith in music. His name is Steve Grand and believe me when I say that he lives up to his name. I first heard about Steve a year ago when his video for “All-American Boy” spread across the Internet like a wildfire. Being an ardent supporter of talented people (because there are so few of them left!) I downloaded the song, donated a little money to his Kickstarter campaign for an album, and followed him on the Twitter. Then last week I found out that he’d be at Market Days this weekend and quickly made arrangements to be there, too. Given the venue and nature of the audience, I was not expecting much. Steve is handsome and built like a truck, so I thought he’d come out shirtless, the audience of boys would fawn over him for the duration of three songs, and that would be that. How wonderfully wrong I was. Steve came out fully clothed-- wearing a plain white V-neck tee shirt, skinny black Levis, and...
Read more

California high court expected to rule on same-sex marriage

Image
The California Supreme Court is expected to determine the fate of same-sex marriage in the state today as well as the validity of about 18,000 same-sex marriages. The court will rule on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the controversial measure banning same-sex marriage that voters approved in November. Its opponents want the amendment nullified. They say the proposition alters California's Constitution and, therefore, under state law, is a revision that requires a constitutional convention. Attorneys for the opponents also say the proposition, which removed the "marriage" label from same-sex unions, effectively deprives same-sex couples of a fundamental right guaranteed them under the equal-protection clause in the U.S. Constitution. Proposition 8 passed with about 52.5 percent of the vote, making California one of several states to ban same-sex marriage in the November 4 elections. But unlike others, California had been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex coupl...
Read more