American auto maker Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) reported its first quarter earnings this morning, and surprised Wall Street by posting a profit during the quarter.Going into today's earnings announcement, analysts had been expecting the company to show a loss of 16 cents per share, but the nation's second largest auto maker surprised everyone by earning $100 million, or 5 cents per share, during the quarter. This is a nice rebound from the same period last year when the struggling auto maker had a loss of $282 million, or 15 cents a share.
The good news is that the company had a great performance in its European and South American markets. The bad news is that car and truck sales slumped once again in the weak U.S. market, hurt by the current economic slowdown.
Revenue was down a bit in the quarter, at $39.4 billion, below the same period last year when revenues were $43 billion. This was mainly a reaction to the company's sale of its Jaguar-Land Rover and Aston Martin units. The company stated that excluding the sale, its revenues would have actually been up slightly in the quarter.
The company's results from its main American market were in the red again, although not nearly as bad as the same period last year. During the quarter, the company had a $45 million pretax loss in the United States. While this looks bad on the surface, consider that during the company's first quarter last year the company showed a loss of $613 million.
In premarket trading, investors have pushed the stock up a little over 6% this morning.
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.
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