Foreign Sales Boost Ford Earnings

Today Ford [[f]] announced that they had made a $100 million, or 5 cents per share, profit in Q1 on strong sales in Europe and South America compared to a loss of $282 million, or 15 cents per share, for last year’s Q1. This came despite record gasoline prices and a slowdown in US sales which had led investors and analysts to expect a loss. Earnings for the European unit tripled, probably in part due to the high Euro, and losses in its US unit went down to $45 million from $613 million last Q1. And while Ford has warned that 2008 will be a tough year and it will probably make an overall loss, investors are optimistic that Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s strategy may be showing results, and have bid up Ford’s stock prices by over 8%.

ConocoPhillips [[cop]], the third-largest U.S. oil company, showed a strong 17% profit increase to $4.14 billion, or $2.62 per share, on the back of ever increasing oil prices. This was above average analysts’ expectations of $2.42 a year ago. Increasing oil prices helped offset a decrease in production from 2.02 million barrels per day a year ago to 1.79 million barrels per day this past quarter. The decrease was due in large part to the expropriation of its Venezuelan oil projects last year and its exit from Dubai.

In finance, Credit Suisse [[cs]] reported its first loss in 5 years, no thanks to $5.2 billion in writedowns. The first quarter loss was 2.15 billion francs, compared with a 2.73 billion-franc profit for last year’s Q1. Shares rose though, after the bank reassured investors that its capital position is “strong”, and investors no longer think they will have to sell shares to raise further capital.

This earnings season shows the truly interesting results of globalization - US companies with strong overseas sales have done well, and foreign banks with too much US exposure have suffered.

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