Opinions
David Fingold
Volkswagen AG
VOW-GR
DON'T BUY
Jan 03, 2018
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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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's buying this week's dip. These shares fell to $30, which is obscene compared to other carmakers. Overall, FedEx and Nike are talking about supply chain issues which he hears is worsening, not improving, as rising wages will narrow margins. So, he will likely return to high cash levels.
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 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.