Earnings Preview: Ford (F) Looks To Keep on Rollin' Through Q2 (TM, HMC)

Shares of Ford (NYSE: F) are trading higher ahead of the company's second quarter earnings release, expected out before the market opens tomorrow, July 23, 2010. Shares are up about 5% to $12.15.

Ford is expected to report an EPS of $0.40 on revs of $29.79 billion. Last quarter, Ford had an EPS of $0.46, ex-items, on revs of $28.1 billion...mixed to the Street consensus. For Q209, F posted a loss of $0.48 with revs of $27.2 billion.


Shares of the stock, notably higher from the start of 2009, dropped a little through the quarter, losing about 16% to $10.57 at the end of June. The stock is up 18.1% since the start of 2010. To compare, the S&P 500 is currently 3.3% lower YTD.

Ford shares are currently trading at a forward P/E of 9.3x FY10 EPS estimates, compared to 47.5x for Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM) and 14.5x for Honda (NYSE: HMC).

Data from Bloomberg has 9 analysts with a Buy rating on the shares, 6 with a Hold, and one suggesting to Sell. The analyst price target average is $13.93, with a high of $18 and a low of $10.

Analyst Ratings Through the Quarter

Just after the company's first quarter release, Citi increased their risk rating on the shares from
Speculative to High. Citi maintained their Sell rating, and increased their
price target from $7.50 to $10.

In June, CRT Group put a Sell rating on the shares, noting that they are at full valuation. CRT has a $9.75 price target on Ford. However, at the end of June, CRT moved their rating to Fairly Valued.

At the end of June, Citi upgraded the shares from Sell to Hold.

Summary

Soleil Securities raised EPS from $.34 to $0.46, reflecting higher volumes in global operations. They also note that Ford paid about $7 billion of debt down through the quarter, so they're looking for net automotive debt of about $5 billion, and near zero by the end of 2010. Soleil has a Buy rating with a price target of $16 on the shares.

Ford reported a 15.4% increase in June U.S. sales, 23% in May, and 24.7% in April.

Ford Motor Co. is expected to release their Q210 earnings on Friday, July 23, 2010, at approximately 7:00am EDT. Stay tuned to StreetInsider.com's Earnings section to see our analysis of the highly-anticipated quarterly results within seconds of their release.

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