9:10am- Turnaround plan is moving along nicely and the company still is setting the year 2009 as when they expect to see the company once again return to profitability.

9:12am- Company achieved 500 million in cost savings during the quarter with $400 million of this cost reduction coming in North America. North America has now reached 1.9 billion out of the goal of 5 billion in cost reductions. Employee reductions of 18,000 took place in the quarter, with a mix of hourly and salaried personnel. This was achieved with hardly any impact on operation.

Now Donat R. Leclair is taking over the call getting to the numbers.

9:13am- Pretax profit of 69 million. -- $225 million loss on the auto side and $294 million profit on the finance side.

9:15am- Weakening of the US dollar reduced profits by about 200 million.

9:16am- Pension and retirement related costs were $400 million less than a year ago, mainly because of new labor contract with UAW.

9:19am- North American revenue fell 8% year over year to $18.2 billion from 19.8 billion, mainly a result of lower volumes.

9:21am- Looking back over the quarter the company's US market share was 15.1%. The company saw a year over year fall in market share of their heavy truck sales due to the weakening housing market while during the first quarter a year ago heavy truck sales were pushed higher due to hurricane Katrina reconstruction.

9:25am- Overall progress on cost reduction in North America is going good. Defined goal is 5 billion in cost reductions by the end of 2008 and they need about 3billion more in reductions over the remaining of this year and through 2008. They will continue to persue cost reductions after 2008 but these reductions will come from reducing areas like materials cost, and not have to do additional "in house" cost reductions like they are going through at this time.

9:27am- South America and Europe are both performing well for the company. 9.1% market value in the 19 markets they track in Europe. Thats up 0.3% compared to same period a year ago. The European profit for the quarter showed a profit from Aston Martin. But since they announced the sale of this in the first quarter their operating revenues will not include this once the sale is completed.

9:30am- Good numbers again from its investment in Mazda. The company earned $22 million from its Mazda business

9:31am- Company had 35.2 billion in cash at the end of the quarter.

9:34am- Financial services earned $294 million for the quarter. Ford credit was down $88 million from last year. Expect Ford credit to earn 1.2 billion on a pre tax basis this year.

9:35am- Market share down in US but up in Europe.

9:36am- North American production this quarter should be about 810,000 which is 40,000 vehicles higher than the company had estimated back on March 1

9:38am- Total auto results for full year should be slightly under last years loss of $5.1 billion. Factors adding pressure are the weakening housing market and the falling dollar.

9:40am- Alan closing up the comments and re-listing the company's four main objectives

1. Continued restructuring the auto business
2. accelerate product development
3. securing financing - already accomplished
4. teamwork - continual improvement in the company's overall teamwork

Moving to the question phase of the call now:

9:43am- Rob @ UBS - Ford Credit.... At what point will they be concerned with the housing market hitting their credit business. -- The company is definitely paying attention to the situation, but at now the credit business is tracking with the overall economy. It got out of the sub prime business back in 2004 so they aren't too concerned, but definitely paying attention to the ongoing situation.

9:47am- From JP Morgan - Housekeeping question - how much incentive spending showed up in the first quarter? A couple hundred million is the company's estimate. Is a very tough pricing environment out there currently. What models will have some pull ahead production? The F-Series trucks, and he mentioned another product line, but i couldnt catch the name. But the main product showing light inventories is the F-Series.

@9:50am stock is currently trading up 4.4% to 8.23

9:53am- Jonathon from Morgan Stanely - Net product cost... -700 milion. Is more of this material cost or regulatory? Will this get worse year over year? Should be a little loaded during the year, but doesn't really follow spot prices.

9:56am- Ronald @ Bank of America - on product costs.. what was material cost reduction? They are basically one in the same so the reduction in product costs are basically the same as material cost reductions. The company expects material costs will be up slightly over the course of this year. Rise in the material costs will be less than $2 billion for the year, but can't give a solid estimate at this point.

10:04am- Chris @ Credit Suiss... Breakdown of pension and retirement .. $400 million total savings during the quarter. UAW health care deal was about 160 million of that number. Balance is split between curtailment and pension improvement. Some of the employees that left the company during the quarter without actually retiring, and that helped the number. Look for total reductions on retirement and pension costs of around $1 billion during the year so the figure will drop sequentially over the remaining quarters of the year.

10:06am- Robert @ Goldman Sachs... Is Jaguar now back in the black? The company will not break out individual brands. Jaguar did improve year over year, but no single product numbers will be broken out.

10:09am- John @ Dow Jones... Getting back to incentives. Is the company suggesting a big future penalty based on first quarter incentives? No, retail incentives were up slightly in the first quarter, but they are not expecting to see a huge penalty going forward. During the third quarter they will be selling most of the remaining 2007 models and will accrue the incentives in the second quarter for those vehicles. Shouldn't get a whole lot worse during the remainder of the year. Are there more employees in Europe than North America? Dodged the answer but said it was close.

10:11am- Bill @ BLoomberg News - In terms of consistency, are these the type of reports that we can expect for the rest of the year? Will results become more consistent? Yes, the company is expecting to show consistency through the year.

10:14am- Brice from Detroit News - What is the company's biggest concern going forward? Clearly, focussing on revenue and cost side are the company's main objective. Brand awareness is vital, driving showroom traffic, and relentlessly improving the productivity. Oil prices, housing starts, gasoline prices, etc., will also be very important for the company.

10:19am- Sarah @ Detroit News Press: She heard a comment that there may be 1 or two ACH operations that will not be sold by the end of '08. The company may keep 1 or 2 products in one, maybe 2 ACH plants because it makes sense to the company's strategy. What was interest expense for the quarter? The net of interest income and expense was 341 million.

10:24am- Emily @ Automotive News : Will the company need to make involuntary employee reductions to hit their target? No, the company is not seeing any significant involuntarily reductions. Are they going to have to keep using temporary workers in several of their plants? They are using temporary employees to sequence the departure of their employees as capacity is reduced, which minimizes the # of temporary employees, and also the number of people that are entering the job market.

10:27am- Peter @ Sandopoint (?): sorry if i butchered your company's name Peter: Wants to hear a little more about Ford Motor Credit. Will the company be setting anything aside for a more anemic economic outlook. How does the company see the evolution of the 35 billion in the company's cash position. -- Company will continue to set provisions and reserves as they see best. Expect to see 07 through 09 to have a cash outflow of about 17 billion. They see the majority of that outflow to happen this year, so by the end of this year the company's cash will definitely be lower, probably under the 30 billion mark, but no estimates to be made at this time.

That is all... as of the end of today's call shares in Ford are trading up 4.7% to 8.25. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.