Due to a fire at its Michigan headquarters on Monday, Ford postponed reporting its October US sales until Wednesday.
Other major automakers reported in Tuesday, and while the overall US sales pace was unexpectedly torrid, running above 18 million new cars and trucks sold, results were mixed for individual companies.
Ford saw a significant decline of 12% from October of last year, among the steepest of any carmaker.
That was the bad news.
But the good news was, as Ford said in a statement, all about pickups and pricing:
Ford charged more for those trucks and lowered its overall incentive spending, so this is of those cases where inevitable headlines about Ford's business weakening have to be counterbalanced with how strong Ford's sales are in a highly profitable segment.
Too many trucks?
There was a tucked-away negative factoid in Ford's sales report: inventories.
"The company’s days’ supply for October was 90 days," the company said. "Ford has been taking actions to match production with demand, as outlined during the company’s third quarter financial results and is well positioned for Black Friday and year-end sales events."
Both Ford and General Motors (NYSE:GM) are running heavy on inventories right now: GM also has about 90 days. Do the math: there are only about 60 days left in the year.
Part of the reason for this is that pickups are a big factor in sales at the moment, and dealers like to have a lot of different pickups on their lots — at a variety of trim levels — to satisfy customers. Automakers that aren't as strong on pickups don't have to manage this issue.
But it does mean that Ford and GM will likely have to hike incentives going into the final months of the year, to clear the lots and set up for 2017.
Ford shares were flat in early trading on Wednesday, at $11.50.