John Casesa Quotations

We believe that the Firestone recall is a storm that will intensify with the upcoming congressional hearing and then quickly pass. Based on our analysis of the outcome of other high-profile, controversial recalls, the stock should make a recovery.

The plan was in-line with our expectations and is only the beginning of a long restructuring process.

Lutz's hiring signals the possibility of a renaissance at GM and heightens our sensitivity to the possibility of more constructive change, ... This is a major change in strategy for GM, which has historically relied heavily on inside promotions.

Last year was a terrifically strong month, so it was a difficult comparison. Secondly, a lot of the pent up demand, created by the recession, has been satisfied at this point in the economy's expansion.

Several factors should prevent an outright decline, as spending per unit will likely remain strong.

My guess is most people view this as a tire issue than a Ford Explorer issue. But there are a lot of good competitors to Ford Explorer out there on the market.

Car buying is influenced by consumer confidence. And confidence varies month to month but on a trend basis, it is down a lot in the last year, year-and-a-half. And my own view, unless it bounces back and unless history is wrong, we're going to really struggle to get these buyers in next year because they're just not as confident about the future to make a big ticket purchase as they were six months or a year ago.

Capitalizing on growth in Asia through Daewoo is essential if GM is to achieve a profitable mix of businesses. They can't do it by just cutting costs in North America.

GM's sales have declined year-over-year in nine of the last 12 months, saved only by the employee pricing campaign this summer.

GM's competitiveness is not only dependent upon labor costs, but also on the speed of its decision-making, its success in responding to the market appropriately and its ability to identify the growth segments in the market.

GM likely doesn't have enough inventory to maintain a strong sales pace. And inevitably, the employee-pricing program is losing its effectiveness, as eventually happened to zero-percent financing, hot-button bonus cash programs, talk-show host car giveaways and other promotions.

GM likely doesn't have enough inventory to maintain a strong sales pace.

GM is going in the right direction, but it is not getting better as fast as the competition is getting better.

GM historically has derived almost a third of its earnings from the European business. It didn't do that in this quarter.

GM has many calls on its cash, including pensions, retiree health care and Fiat's put option,

GM and the UAW will collide at some point as the company's results worsen, ... The Delphi filing suggests that it will happen sooner rather than later.

If the strike continues through the end of October, the company will lose units of production that it can't replace in this quarter, and that will reduce the earnings outlook. The likelihood is that this strike will be settled soon, in the next three to four days, maybe in week.

There is enormous pressure for consolidation in the auto industry, ... There is way more supply than demand -- at least 40 extra plants around the world -- and that's the primary reason the returns in the business are crummy.

There is enormous peer pressure because Ford faced essentially the same conditions as GM does now back in the '80s, ... pick up the pace.

I think the auto industry and the economy at large are inseparable. An increase in the cost of money is going to slow down big ticket purchases, and it's inevitable that is going to hit auto sales. I think that's what we're beginning to see in May.

I think the auto industry and the economy at large are inseparable,

Like steel, textiles, airlines and other American industries that have undergone radical restructurings, ... we expect an increasingly volatile and difficult environment for the companies involved and for their shareholders.

which is a tough number to justify without tangible results.

Today's reaction simply reflects the hope there's not going to be a strike that shuts down the industry.

The pressure on GM management is greater than ever ... to adopt a more aggressive turnaround strategy.

The outlook for the fourth quarter is not so hot. It is very clear that results in North America will be compressed by all this price cutting.

The only bright spot left this year could be December, which is typically driven by year-end sales campaigns.

We think the damage to the (Ford) brand has already been done.

To the extent that GM takes any action to get more competitive, that has to influence the urgency of Ford's strategy.

We were surprised that GM said that it does not plan to reduce permanently assembly capacity in North America to reflect the Olds phase-out, ... GM's restructuring, especially its discontinuance of the Olds brand, is undeniably a step in the right direction. However, the costs of these actions are much more visible than their ongoing benefits right now.  We anxiously await follow-up actions.

We expect this mix improvement to overwhelm difficult market conditions for the foreseeable future, and therefore, we now expect solid earnings growth in 2002,

We expect the truck mix to gradually improve through the remainder of the year, but fleet sales will likely recover, offsetting some of the mix benefits.

We think it would take a rapid acceleration in economic growth and/or sharp capacity reduction, both of which appear unlikely.

Even though the U.S. economy's pretty healthy, there's not much growth in demand. Everybody who needs a car has already bought one.

Even excluding the charge, European auto operations continue to be a big drag.

The ripple effect on GM supplies is profound. GM represents anywhere between 15 and 20 percent of the sales of most big supplies, so these are lost sales and lost profits. And you'll see it in their second quarter results.

These results are reminiscent of Ford's late 1990's performance -- driving earnings improvement with a richer truck mix, ... GM remains market-share driven and its North American pricing fell 1.0 percent. Fortunately, it was able to increase its mix of light trucks and decrease its fleet sales, offsetting partially the negative impact of lower prices.

These disclosures don't look very good when investors are already skittish about what's going on in the automotive industry. You hate to discover a leak in your basement when you're trying to sell your house.

They start with a young, healthy work force so they have low health-care liabilities. Because the work force is young, there are no pension payments, and there won't be for many years. And, third and most important, they started with a clean sheet in terms of labor relations.

Its easier for outsiders to be hard-nosed with the former parents of these companies. They're simply less bound by the fairly long, shared history.

It seems that November got off to an excruciatingly slow start, with new incentives programs from Ford and GM just now beginning to boost showroom traffic.

Ford and GM are now in a race to shrink.

It looks increasingly likely to us that GM will effect some kind of a transaction that will separate these two businesses. These two companies will be worth more apart than they are together.

It's a very deep concern in the near term because there's no question it will be a deterrent to U.S. investors. He was highly respected by institutional investors in the United States.

The North American operations are the driver of the results. Business is great this year, and the mix is very rich -- they're selling lots of trucks,

The auto companies have closed this excess capacity, are now making better product and simply don't have a lot of extra cars they can offer at low prices to this distribution channel. People like Henry Silverman or Wayne Huizenga will make those businesses more rationally structured.

It's an example of the best GM can do. The car costs less money to make than the old one. It's faster, handles better, has far better quality and is much more user friendly.

They just want to make sure that people don't rule GM out. But the probability of finding exactly what they want is probably pretty slim.

In short, while the negative press will likely hold back the stock near-term, we don't think it will have a lasting impact, and in our view, Ford remains relatively attractive,

If Ford makes Volvo work, it has the potential to break out of the pack of second-tier automakers,

If consumers' desire for large SUVs does not snap back, GM will be launching its new full size SUVs into an unwelcoming market.

For the next year, year and a half I expect Ford to lose market share. It doesn't have many levers to pull. Its product pipeline is relatively dry and GM is being very aggressive.

The UAW doesn't want to solve GM's cost problem if management can't solve its revenue problem,

The massive cuts reflect high inventory levels, falling new vehicle sales and a shift in automaker tactics from price cuts to production cuts,

The Japanese make the highest quality vehicles on the market and that gives them the highest residual value, and therefore allows them to offer the lowest monthly lease rates.