By increasing in-region development and procurement, these companies can better adapt to US tastes and preferences while insulating themselves from currency fluctuations. |
Despite a favorable backdrop of relatively high employment and low financing rates, U.S. automakers, in our opinion, will collectively lose market share to foreign manufacture again in 2006, particularly in the luxury vehicle category. Additionally, Standard & Poor's Equity Research believes the U.S. will face margin compression on two fronts, the first as a result of higher retiree and health-care costs. The second results from a combination of rising gas prices and increased sales of crossover utility vehicles which will negatively impact sales of higher margin large SUVs. |
He [Ward] focused on the high-end of the market and neglected the low-end shares. |
His experience and credibility with the Street is not easily replaced. |
I'm wondering if this is the bulk of the bad news and is it past us? I was looking for something like this, but not quite this bad. |
If there is a strike at Delphi ... that would be the biggest negative that I can see for the year. |
If they don't get their sales up, it's not going to be enough. There is going to be ongoing restructuring. |
It's not good news to change someone of Devine's stature. I would have liked to see Devine stay on longer. I'd rather have someone with greater experience around as the company deals with the trouble it has and is likely to continue to have. |
It's the vehicles themselves. You have to have products that people are excited about buying. And you also have to make sure they're happy with the ownership process and they're not taking them to the shop more often for a domestic brand than you are for a foreign brand. |
It's time for automakers to tighten their belts and look for areas of inefficiencies and redundancies. They need to review what discretionary items can be eliminated. |
Management is typically an optimistic group. That's definitely one of the concerns I'm looking at right now. |
Signs in the marketplace are showing it is not having the punch that it once had, |
There are not so many people that can actually qualify for zero-percent financing, ... But the incentives get them into the dealership, where they might get something else. |
There are not so many people that can actually qualify for zero-percent financing. But the incentives get them into the dealership, where they might get something else. |
There is always room for more. There are always challenges in terms of executing on plan and the competition doesn't stand still. They have to start somewhere and this is their base. |