One story is revealed by the numbers. Another is told on the factory floor. The F-150 line outside Ford’s Rouge complex in Dearborn is a constant reminder that the company still moves more pickup trucks than most automakers do cars. However, if you were to walk through any Ford dealer’s lot this spring, you would notice something that the spreadsheets don’t quite capture: a lot of inventory, a lot of incentives, and salespeople answering unexpected questions about EV reliability.
Q1 outperformed all models. The stock should have been launched with an EPS of $0.66 compared to a consensus of $0.18. $43.25 billion in revenue exceeded projections as well. The management increased the adjusted EBIT full-year guidance to a range of $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion. That combination would clear the runway on most quarters. Rather, a one-time $1.30 billion IEEPA tariff benefit—basically a refund—shadowed the print and subtly inflated the headline. When you remove it, the image becomes unremarkable.
Observing Wall Street’s response gives the impression that analysts are sick of being duped by Ford. Goldman Sachs reduced the price from $15 to $13. TD Cowen dropped from $14 to $13. Jeffries was also trimmed. UBS still has a purchase, albeit a smaller one. The goal was raised to $13 by the Royal Bank of Canada. Five buys, ten holds, one sell—a chorus of analysts who can’t quite agree on whether to believe the warning signs or the recovery—are the story in and of themselves.
There are warning lights. About 1.4 million F-150 trucks made between 2015 and 2017 are being recalled by Ford due to a gearshift issue that can abruptly put the vehicle in second gear. Additionally, there is a separate seat recall for 179,000 Bronco and Ranger vehicles. Large-scale recalls don’t cost money on their own, but they hinder dealer service bays, reduce new sales, and erode the trust that Ford has built up over the course of a century. The math for 2026 quickly becomes unsettling when you factor in the rising cost of aluminum following the fires at Novelis’s Oswego plant as well as the tariff effects of roughly $1 billion this year.
Someone is still purchasing. William Clay Ford Jr. — Bill Ford, the great-grandson of Henry — picked up 140,000 shares in February at an average price of $13.82. He put almost two million dollars of his own money at a price that the stock hasn’t seen since. Insiders only own about 0.63% of the company. It’s worth stopping when one of them spends actual money on the open market. It may have no significance. Alternatively, it could indicate that someone who has a better view than the rest of us believes the floor is closer than it actually is.
With software subscriptions up 30% year over year to 879,000 paying customers and 11.4% margins, the Ford Pro division continues to be the bright spot. Detroit was supposed to be unable to develop that kind of recurring-revenue business. In the meantime, the Model e EV division lost $777 million in the first quarter alone, with losses predicted to reach $4 billion to $4.5 billion for the entire year. Ten years ago, Tesla encountered similar skepticism, but Tesla overcame it. It’s still unclear if Ford can.
The stock currently pays you 5.2% to wait. That is not insignificant. It’s difficult to ignore Ford’s forward P/E ratio of about 8, which is the kind of multiple the market reserves for companies that are already half-buried. Perhaps that’s correct. Perhaps it isn’t, as Bill Ford seems to believe.
