Ford returning to monthly sales reports

[Anthony]

https://www.autonews.com/sales/ford-returning-monthly-us-sales-reporting

 

More at link above

Quote

 

Ford Motor Co., which stopped reporting U.S. monthly sales nearly two years ago, has reversed course and will release monthly figures for the “foreseeable future.”

Ford wants to give investors more detail on its U.S. performance during the pandemic, said Said Deep, a company spokesman. Jim Farley took over as CEO Oct. 1 from a retiring Jim Hackett as the automaker is launching four key models -- a redesign of its top-selling F-150 pickup, the electric Mustang Mach-E , the revived Bronco SUV and Bronco Sport.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford and much of the rest of the industry followed General Motors in switching to quarterly reporting.

 

 

[akirby]

I think quarterly is still better but I can understand Farley’s position with several key product launches coming up.

[jpd80]

Monthly sales calls were supposed to be good news events, so I can understand Ford wanting

to stop them when it knew that car sales were declining or suffering big fluctuations.

 

Farley knows that Ford has turned a corner with new products arriving to fill the void,

you can tell when a new broom has different ideas..

[FR739]

This is good.  I like this.  
 

I always thought it was a mistake going to quarterly reports.  One of the things that was frustrating about Hackett was that he never really said anything other than meaningless corporate speak.  And by going to quarterly reporting, yet another avenue was removed for people to learn about how the company was doing.  
 

Granted nothing is stopping Ford from issuing press releases every day if they wanted to but they’re already tallying sales on a monthly basis, heck maybe even weekly or daily, so why not just release them anyway.  Good job Jim 

[jpd80]

Ford and GM wanted all commentary on monthly sales and inventory shut down,

they even stopped monthly reports to the industry to silence commentary.

The big issue was wall street constantly critiquing Ford's monthly performance

and putting their own spin on results to investors, I think the discussions on

BON & GMI were  colourful but less destructive than the banksters.....

 

I can see RMC having fun backfilling all the missing data in his charts,

I look forward to reading his informative reports....

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by jpd80

[FordBuyer]

I remember when auto companies reported sales results every 10 days and AN reported production numbers every week on their last page. Transparancey is going the way of the Dodo bird. Investors deserve much more info, not less.

 

[akirby]

1 hour ago, FR739 said:

This is good.  I like this.  
 

I always thought it was a mistake going to quarterly reports.  One of the things that was frustrating about Hackett was that he never really said anything other than meaningless corporate speak.  And by going to quarterly reporting, yet another avenue was removed for people to learn about how the company was doing.  
 

Granted nothing is stopping Ford from issuing press releases every day if they wanted to but they’re already tallying sales on a monthly basis, heck maybe even weekly or daily, so why not just release them anyway.  Good job Jim 

 

The problem is a single month can be very distorted based on production issues, model year changeovers, natural disasters, pull ahead sales,  etc whereas those get smoothed out more within a quarter.  And that applies to both good and bad news.   Not surprising Ford wants to brag about expected good news sooner.

[akirby]

19 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

I remember when auto companies reported sales results every 10 days and AN reported production numbers every week on their last page. Transparancey is going the way of the Dodo bird. Investors deserve much more info, not less.

 

 

There is no lack of transparency even with quarterly reporting.   A company's health doesn't change every 10 days or even quarterly.

[rmc523]

57 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Ford and GM wanted all commentary on monthly sales and inventory shut down,

they even stopped monthly reports to the industry to silence commentary.

The big issue was wall street constantly critiquing Ford's monthly performance

and putting their own spin on results to investors, I think the discussions on

BON & GMI were  colourful but less destructive than the banksters.....

 

I can see RMC having fun backfilling all the missing data in his charts,

I look forward to reading his informative reports....

 

my first thought was “great, now I have to re-rebuild all my charts to be monthly again”

 

I do look forward to seeing the monthly data again though.  Did it say when they’ll start?

 

any specific chart requests?

[snooter]

Quarterly reports was a way to hide financial health and sales data...everybody knew this...blue, tye dyed kool-aid consumers of course wanted this...

[rperez817]

Here is the thread from 2019 when Ford moved to quarterly sales reports.

 

What was true then is true now. Quarterly reporting for vehicle sales makes the most sense. Financials are reported quarterly. The "additional detail" that the Ford spokesman mentioned regarding monthly sales reporting isn't relevant for investors. More data isn't better data in this case.

[akirby]

39 minutes ago, snooter said:

Quarterly reports was a way to hide financial health and sales data...everybody knew this...blue, tye dyed kool-aid consumers of course wanted this...

Name other businesses that report more frequently than quarterly.

[rperez817]

3 minutes ago, akirby said:

Name other businesses that report more frequently than quarterly.

 

Among publicly traded companies, I don't know of any. Quarterly is the standard.

[jpd80]

2 hours ago, akirby said:

Name other businesses that report more frequently than quarterly.

It’s not compulsory, it’s something they want to do now that they’re taking the up elevator on sales.

[akirby]

42 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

It’s not compulsory, it’s something they want to do now that they’re taking the up elevator on sales.

I was refuting the point that doing it quarterly was somehow hiding information from investors.

[mackinaw]

4 hours ago, rperez817 said:

What was true then is true now. Quarterly reporting for vehicle sales makes the most sense. Financials are reported quarterly. The "additional detail" that the Ford spokesman mentioned regarding monthly sales reporting isn't relevant for investors. More data isn't better data in this case.

 

It's all about transparency.  From CNBC:

 

"Ford Motor will release its U.S. vehicle sales on a monthly basis as well as quarterly after the company’s new CEO Jim Farley promised Wall Street greater transparency.  Ford spokesman Said Deep said the change is “about giving investors more frequent updates on U.S. sales and dealer inventory during the pandemic.” He said it’s expected to continue for the “foreseeable future.”

In his first quarterly earnings call with analysts as CEO, Farley promised Wall Street greater transparency — something his predecessor, Jim Hackett, was criticized for not doing. Farley succeeded Hackett effective Oct. 1.

“My commitment to each of you is transparency, including purposeful, measurable key performance indicators so you can objectively track our progress,” Farley told analysts on Oct. 28.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/04/fords-new-ceo-promises-investors-more-transparency-reports-october-sales-declined-6point1percent.html

 

[rperez817]

1 hour ago, mackinaw said:

 

It's all about transparency.  From CNBC:

 

Thank you for the CNBC article mackinaw sir. Ford's commitment to greater transparency is a good thing for sure. But monthly vehicle sales reporting to the public is a waste of time and effort for Ford. It doesn't increase transparency. As I said in the thread from 2019 when Ford announced its move to quarterly sales reporting, no investor or media outlet needs publicly released monthly sales data from automakers. Economists at the Federal Reserve Branches who need that data for their economic reports already get it.

[jpd80]

5 hours ago, akirby said:

I was refuting the point that doing it quarterly was somehow hiding information from investors.

Yes and no, they were filtering sales info but with good reason.

 

(GM, FCA &) Ford wanted to avoid its sales calls turning into a monthly battle with analysts

like  Adam Jonas, who became increasingly critical of Ford's sales performances.

 

Instead of a voluntary good news release, the whole thing descended into probing questions

followed by ripping articles that put a bad spin on things with investors. It was a lot more

harmful than the critiquing that was done on forums like  BON and GMI.

 

Lots of carmakers still report sales monthly, I suspect that FCA, GM & Ford were hoping that

everyone else would follow their lead but that clearly didn't happen, the only reason that Ford

would change back is requests from influential corners.......

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by jpd80

[FordBuyer]

18 hours ago, akirby said:

 

There is no lack of transparency even with quarterly reporting.   A company's health doesn't change every 10 days or even quarterly.

Farley disagrees as he said yesterday that he plans to offer more transparency to investors.

 

Now I would agree that if Ford is the only one offering monthly sales, then you lose comparisons. But one month can be relevant if in comparison the sales are much lower or higher than competition. Then you watch the next month even more to know what's going on if anything. Could be fleet sales, increased incentives, lack of new product, disappointing sales of new product like Escape, or whatever.

 

American culture is very impulsive, impatient, and is used to having info at their fingertips whether it be fact or fiction. So I personally miss the monthly sales results and follow it much less now that we only get it four times a year. I notice that now quarterly sales get very little response on here as compared to monthly sales response in the past.

 

So I hope GM and FCA follow suit and make it more fun and informative. Farley is a car guy and car guys and gals don't want to wait three long months for auto results. And older ones living on borrowed time sure don't want to wait. 

[ice-capades]

Internally, the industry operates on a monthly, not quarterly basis. The monthly reports for sales are what help determine Dealer allocation for the next month's vehicle allocation. The sales numbers are important internally but end up in the press anyway.  

[jpd80]

2 hours ago, ice-capades said:

Internally, the industry operates on a monthly, not quarterly basis. The monthly reports for sales are what help determine Dealer allocation for the next month's vehicle allocation. The sales numbers are important internally but end up in the press anyway.  

Precisely, the figures are still collated internally.

The reason Ford stopped monthly sales calls, even releasing figures including monthly inventory

was to close down monthly discussions of those results by the internet but particularly bankster

analysts who would use "bad news" to their advantage in writing advice to stockholders.

 

Now that monthly figures are set to improve month by month, year on year, Ford has no problem,

 a telling sign that gagging monthly sales figures was all about "damage control" with investors.

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by jpd80

[jpd80]

4 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

Farley disagrees as he said yesterday that he plans to offer more transparency to investors.

 

Now I would agree that if Ford is the only one offering monthly sales, then you lose comparisons. But one month can be relevant if in comparison the sales are much lower or higher than competition. Then you watch the next month even more to know what's going on if anything. Could be fleet sales, increased incentives, lack of new product, disappointing sales of new product like Escape, or whatever.

 

American culture is very impulsive, impatient, and is used to having info at their fingertips whether it be fact or fiction. So I personally miss the monthly sales results and follow it much less now that we only get it four times a year. I notice that now quarterly sales get very little response on here as compared to monthly sales response in the past.

 

So I hope GM and FCA follow suit and make it more fun and informative. Farley is a car guy and car guys and gals don't want to wait three long months for auto results. And older ones living on borrowed time sure don't want to wait. 

One area I'd like to see improved is the breakout of F150 sales from Super Duty,

GM is now doing this with Silverado and Sierra 1500 trucks.

[mackinaw]

I recall when they used to report car sales every ten days (25 years ago?).

[FordBuyer]

2 hours ago, mackinaw said:

I recall when they used to report car sales every ten days (25 years ago?).

Yeah, back in the 90's when Ford sold 400,000 Explorers/year and over 200,000 Expeditions and over 300,000 Taurus SEDANS. The good old days before Firestone tires started exploding. Seems like yesterday.

 

[rperez817]

2 hours ago, mackinaw said:

I recall when they used to report car sales every ten days (25 years ago?).

 

10 day sales reporting was done from the 1920s until the early 1990s. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/01/business/10-day-sales-chrysler-won-t-tell.html  

 

Here is a brief history of how sales reporting has been done by automakers in the U.S.

• 1920s: Alfred Sloan at General Motors introduced a standard 10-day report compiling dealers' sales. According to the NYT article linked above, prior to Sloan's action "a lack of information about sales and inventory that had nearly caused GM to collapse". Other automakers followed the GM standard for the next half century almost.
• 1991: Chrysler Corporation standardized on monthly sales reporting. Other automakers started using the monthly standard shortly thereafter.
• 2004: Tesla reported vehicle deliveries on a quarterly basis.
• 2017: General Motors switched to quarterly sales reporting
• 2019-2020: BMW, Ford, FCA, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan (including Mitsubishi), Toyota, VW Group moved to quarterly sales reporting
• 2020: Ford announces it will report sales monthly again, for no good reason