Accentuating the caveat emptor perspective with critical commentary on financial disclosure. I adopt a skeptical persona and look for chinks in the teflon coating of financial disclosure. My job is to identify financial warts. Perhaps a Black Swan. Disclosure: I do not hold positions in stocks mentioned for three trading days before or after blog post.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Ford Interest Margins
Ford (F) and Ford Motor Credit reported their respective disasters. As was expected the two sick puppies had a lot of problems. But in reading the relative press release I could not be struck by the fact that Ford reported “unfavorable net interest expense” when discussing Q3 results. But Ford Motor Credit reports a “partially by higher financing margin” offset to poorer credit results. I know that this is not entirely apples to apples. But it is close enough. Everyone points to the same credit environment. The guy’s running the credit managed a wider margin. The making the cars say they got hammered. Maybe they should get together and have a coffee or something. Its so bad at Ford it could not hurt.