Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) has had their best first quarter earnings in 13 years with a profit of $2.6 billion being reported. These results beat the expectations of Wall Street as FactSet was predicting $2.1 billion in earnings. Ford’s revenues had increased 18% to $33.1 billion. Ford was profitable in all regions and saw an especially strong growth in Asia.
The earthquake in Japan had little impact on Ford. The company lost a production of about 12,000-14,000 vehicles in their Asia factories, but that did not really effect the bottom line much. However steel costs had increased, which costed Ford $300 million in the first quarter. Ford now has $4.7 million more cash than debt, which is a $3.3 billion improvement from the beginning of the year.
[HuffPo]
Hooray for private enterprise. Ford respectfully declined the bailout and has proven they were unnecessary. But why are we, the taxpayers, underwriting Ford's competition, Government motors?