Ford Motor (F)

Likes this one, relative to the other US car companies. This is the one that did not get any government help. They have some very good things happening. European business is stabilizing and turning around. Growing the business quite well in China and emerging markets. Coming out with some very good products over the next little while. Thinks they are in great shape financially.

Chart shows a little bit of a symmetrical triangle. If he were to play an auto stock, he would want to see this one break out, but it is a lot more encouraging than the chart on General Motors (GM-N).

It is a time to think about buying it because it is struggling and moving sideways. It is a great stock and you should buy it at these levels. They have some great models coming out in the next little while.

Consumer discretionary stocks, particularly this one, tend to do well in the spring. There is a huge spike up from March through to May, but then we get into a period of seasonal weakness. Consumer discretionary stocks tend to do very poorly during the summer. Relative performance is still trending higher on this, so it looks like there are still investors coming into it. We are getting to the end of seasonal strength in a couple of weeks.

Car business continues to be pretty positive. Consumers keep wanting to buy them. Keep an eye on interest rates as well as energy prices. There is anecdotal evidence that there are sub-prime lending problems cropping up again in the US and Canada where people take out big car loans to finance these things.

Have not had a recall. Relatively cheap at 10 times PE. Decent balance sheet. Will continue to grow.

Likes the auto industry in general. Prefers the suppliers to the manufacturers.

Stock had a big jump because of the March sales numbers. She doesn’t own any of the auto OEMs and doesn’t tend to respond to monthly sales numbers. Auto sales are close to the 15,000,000-16,000,000 mark. These are very cyclical names. With the depreciation of the Japanese yen, Japanese manufacturers could potentially get a little more competitive on their pricing.

Have done a very good job of executing. The only auto company that didn’t get help from the US government. What he likes, relative to the others is that they have executed incredibly well. Have some great products coming out. Slowly turning around the difficult parts of their business. Expects you will see some reasonable growth over the next little while, as the US picks up on the economic side. What may have caused a pull back on this stock is that there was some really strong pent-up demand motor vehicles from late 2009 until now and this has sort of tapered off slightly.

Thinks they are suffering from their European issues. Expects earnings are going to be down this year. There isn’t a compelling opportunity to buy this right now. If you own, continue to Hold and he thinks you will do just fine. Very well run company.

For the last year or so, this has not only been sitting sort of stagnant, but weakish since July. Earnings forecasts are kind of fading away. In all of the history before 2009, this company never traded above twice Book Value. He feels there would be a downside target of about $13 for a trade.

(Market Call Minute)

Production has recovered to pre-recession levels. Thinks it is going higher here driven by emerging markets. Great purchase for 2-3 years.

Has GM right now. The whole auto space had such a good recovery that it is just a pause at present. They both gave some guidance that was weaker than expected and some of the monthly auto sales came in weaker but that could be weather related. Thinks they will do well. Either hold or sell some F-N and buy some GM-N

He doesn’t buy stocks at $15 but this has traded at much higher levels in the past. Car sales have been pretty good in Canada and the US.