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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TH who wrote (20354)	1/4/2005 1:22:30 PM
From: ild	Respond to of 116555

Ford Posts Slight Rise In December Sales A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP January 4, 2005 12:39 p.m. Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday December sales of its auto brands edged up slightly, thanks to record sales of its F-Series trucks and a 3% increase in car sales. Sales of passenger cars rose to 83,200 from 80,763, while sales of passenger trucks slipped 0.2% to 211,070. Ford sold a total of 294,270 vehicles for the month, up 0.7% from 292,209. Ford's F-Series had December sales of 95,392, up 13% from the previous year's record sales. Among brands, Ford was up 2%, Volvo was up 4% and Land Rover was up 49%. For the full year, the Dearborn, Mich., company's U.S. sales totaled 3.3 million, down 4.4%. December marked the first month Ford's retail car sales increased since January 2003. Sales of Ford's F-Series trucks last month rose for the 16th month in a row. The results are based on 27 selling days for 2004 and 26 days for 2003. More reports on auto makers' December sales are due this afternoon. December sales of light vehicles in the U.S. are expected to be about the same as last year at around 17.5 million vehicles, on an adjusted annual basis. Industry analysts expect Chrysler Group, the U.S. unit of DaimlerChrysler AG, to register a small sales increase for the month, at the same time picking up a fraction of a point of U.S. market share, to around 14.5%. But General Motors Corp. is likely to see a decline of 5% or more in December sales, as it continues to lose market share to foreign rivals. "We estimate that U.S. light-vehicle sales will be up slightly in December," Merrill Lynch analyst John Casesa wrote in a report before sales results were released. Mr. Casesa said the adjusted selling rate he predicts, of 17.6 million vehicles, "looks strong" relative to previous months, but "GM and Ford will underperform, suggesting that even their conservative first-quarter production schedules have downside risk."