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Volkswagen AGVOW.DEDON'T BUYOct 01, 2015Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Aug 29, 2024. Market Open.
Not a huge fan. Reasonably well managed. Slowdown in EV buying, just as it's been ramping up its EV production. The field is getting crowded, and Chinese makers have the cost advantage. These factories take so many 10s of billions of dollars of investment, so if you don't get demand in a reasonable time, EPS suffers.
Auto companies haven't been great investments over the long haul.
He is not a big fan of car companies because they don't generate much free cash flow. Cap X is very high. He would prefers LFUS-Q. It makes all the fuses that go into electric vehicles.
He wouldn't invest in any automotive company, because we are already running ASAR (a seasonally adjusted rate of production) in the US of 16 or 17 million vehicles. Your best-case scenario to get to 18 million vehicles is extremely limited. We’ve also seen producers do a lot of subprime financing in order to place cars, which implies they have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find demand.
He sold it a few years ago. BMW has said one of their sport utility vehicles does not meet standards. He would avoid the sector right now. Two Canadian auto parts makers make almost nothing for VW and may be worth looking at.