Ford Sales Drop 2.7% Last Month

Welcome to October! The recent news of ebola hitting the United States, combined with other stories, has rattled investors’ nerves. For the first time since August 18, the S&P 500 is trading below 1,960.

Several Buy List stocks are feeling the pain today; AFLAC ($AFL) is below $57.60 and Ford ($F) is down below $14.60. Ford reported that its sales dropped 2.7% which was slightly worse than expectations.

Despite the decline in total deliveries, Ford had a record September for sales of its Fusion sedan, which rose 8.6 percent to 21,693, and its Explorer mid-size SUV had its best September since 2006, rising 0.8 percent to 13,770. Sales of the Lincoln Navigator large SUV rose 24 percent to 1,013.

Sales of F-Series pickups, Ford’s top-selling and most-profitable product line, fell 1 percent to 59,863. Ford’s truck production is constrained because it shut one of its two F-Series factories at the end of August to convert it to build a new aluminum-bodied version going on sale later this year.

ADP reported that the economy created 213,000 jobs last month. The official report from the government will come out on Friday. Wall Street currently expects 215,000 jobs.

The Commerce Department reported an unexpected drop for construction spending for August. Wall Street had been expecting an increase of 0.5%. Instead, it was a drop of 0.8%.

Posted by on October 1st, 2014 at 10:48 am


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