Ford Motor

Ford stock rose sharply after the automaker's second-quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.42 beat the $0.35 LSEG consensus. The firm also raised 2026 guidance to adjusted EBIT of $10 billion-$11 billion from $8.5 billion-$10.5 billion and raised free cash flow guidance.

Why it matters: The guidance increase comes from volume, mix, and pricing that were better than expected. We've found Ford's pricing expectation the past couple of years to be conservative, given that Americans continue to buy lucrative light-truck models and off-road and performance trims. Volume will receive a boost in the second half from a ramp-up in the F-Series as Novelis aluminum supply increases and Ford adds 100,000 units of Canadian Super Duty capacity. Still, guidance implies lower second-half adjusted EBIT versus the first half's $6 billion. Improved F-Series volume will battle several cost headwinds in the second half, including unfavorable commodities, investments in Ford Energy and the universal electric vehicle platform, and launch costs for the new Super Duty capacity.

The bottom line: We are maintaining our $19 fair value estimate for no-moat Ford. We believe the company has finally reached an inflection point on cost control and quality. The 2026 JD Power U.S. Initial Quality Study ranking Ford as the highest mass-market brand supports this view. We have not felt this optimistic about Ford's progress in years. The company has new verticals developing in energy storage, with 20 gigawatt-hours of capacity online by late 2027, and software services such as BlueCruise could add 50 basis points of EBIT margin annually in the future per Ford. We see potential for shares to trade well into the $20s if the market chooses to be more optimistic on Ford's prospects; however, P/E multiple expansion for Detroit automakers is rare. Automotive cash and securities of $22.1 billion brings downside protection from a US recession.

We maintain our fair value estimate at $19 per share. In June, we increased it from $18 after adding the new Ford Energy battery storage business to our model starting in late 2027. We assume meaningful Ford Energy revenue starting in 2028 at $1.6 billion and then sales growing to about $5 billion in 2030. Ford’s May 11 press release talked about Ford Energy eventually deploying at least 20 GWh of storage annually, which, at a possible take rate of $250 per kilowatt-hour, is $5 billion in annual revenue. We model Ford Energy gross margins of about 19% across 2027-30 and think this number can be higher over time. For perspective, Tesla Energy had about 30% gross margin in 2025.

2025 results suggest to us that Ford may have finally figured out how to meaningfully reduce its cost base, excluding tariffs, with $1.5 billion of reduction in 2025 and another $1 billion expected in 2026. Warranty, materials, and headcount reductions are showing progress, and we now see a similar cost-reduction story playing out at Ford that GM succeeded at a few years ago. Average EBIT margin excluding equity income is 4.9%, up from 4.8%, and our midcycle margin for this metric remains about 6%.

We think buying Ford's stock requires investor patience for management to restructure the Ford Blue segment while scaling up, and now restructuring, the Ford Model e electric vehicle business while scaling Ford Energy. The Model e segment lost $5.1 billion in 2024 and $4.8 billion in 2025. In December 2025, Ford announced it expects the Model e segment to be profitable in 2029, but new products are thin for now beyond the second-generation Lightning extended-range EV (EREVs run on electric propulsion aided by a gas-powered generator) and a $30,000 midsize EV pickup that will start production in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2027. Without meaningful EV sales volume to scale expenses, EV battery cost improvements won’t be drastically visible via profit for a while.

Our midcycle total company EBIT margin estimate is about 7.0%. In 2025, tariff costs dragged this metric down to 3.6% from 5.5% in 2024. We remain optimistic about CEO Jim Farley being able to execute on cutting warranty costs and reducing vehicle design complexity to bring more scale in the longer term, but the transition will take time. Leadership has often said that the company needs to be more physically fit, so Ford is in the midst of a multibillion-dollar restructuring program, mostly for Europe but also for EVs, and reducing vehicle build combinations and warranty costs globally. We like that Ford has exited or is downsizing unprofitable businesses to focus on light trucks, off-road vehicles such as the Bronco, launching profitable variants of popular vehicles such as bringing the Raptor trim to Bronco and Ranger, new segments like compact pickups in the US with the Maverick, and new pickup offerings in 2029 from the Tennessee Truck Plant.

The commercial vehicle segment, Ford Pro, is doing extremely well. Pro is asset-light and enjoys dominant market share with commercial van customers in the US and Europe, while expanding via selling high-margin software services to help business customers. Subscription Pro customers have as much as a 20-percentage-point higher take rate on parts service. Headwinds beyond tariff risk include rising competition in China, fluctuating commodity costs, foreign-exchange pressures around the world, higher interest rates than last decade, and the risk of falling vehicle prices.

Our compound annual automotive revenue growth rate is slightly over 4%. We model capital expenditure of around 5.5% of automotive revenue on average, totaling $51 billion for 2026-30. We value Ford Credit at its 2025 year-end book value of $14.8 billion. Our fair value estimate could change dramatically, given the extreme sensitivity of our discounted cash flow model to inputs such as North American light-vehicle sales, midcycle margins, and a weighted average cost of capital of about 10%.

Ford does not have a moat, and we do not expect that to change, as there are too many obstacles to simultaneously battle. Vehicle manufacturing is a very capital-intensive business, but barriers to entry are not as high as in the past. The industry is already full of strong competition, so it is nearly impossible for one firm to gain a durable advantage over another. Foreign automakers from China may soon enter developed markets such as the US, as they already have in Europe, and South Korea's Hyundai and Kia as well as Tesla have become formidable competitors. Nascent EV makers such as Rivian and Lucid could also be a formidable threat one day if they survive. Furthermore, the auto industry is so cyclical that in bad times even the best automakers cannot avoid large declines in return on invested capital and profit. Cost-cutting helps ease the pain, but it does not restore all lost profit. Consumers also have no switching costs when they want to buy their next vehicle.

Ford's turnaround will take lots of time due to many restructuring projects around the world, but partnerships like Renault may help share cost burdens, and Model e is guided to be profitable in 2029.

Ford is focusing its investments where it gets the best return, which is why mostly exiting North American car segments and production in South America was the right move, in our opinion.

Software and data services for fleet customers are a new and lucrative margin stream for Ford compared with just selling the vehicle.

The auto industry is very cyclical, and at times Detroit automakers have been losing significant US market share to foreign automakers for years. Competition has never been fiercer.

Long-term profitability could be hindered by unions, which have recently become more powerful. Major nonunionized import automakers in the US mostly do not have this problem for now.

Ford's stock can sell off heavily on macroeconomic fears, even if the company itself is doing well. Furthermore, it takes significant investment to fund growth in the auto industry, which limits potential margin expansion.