Ford third-quarter profit beats estimates, shares boosts

Ford Motor on Wednesday reported little bit higher than expected third-quarter profit and stuck to its targets for 2018, raising investor hopes for a solid fourth quarter and sending its shares about as much as 7 percent after-hours.

Profit was down as high commodity costs and a China sales tumbled partially offset strong demand for high-margin pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles in North America.

The automaker maintained its full-year revenue forecast. Last quarter, Ford declared a pending restructuring that could result in pretax charges of up to $11 billion. On Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks stated that plan remains in place.

But the CFO stated while Ford remains committed to an overall pretax margin target of 8 percent, the company will not achieve it by 2020 as announced earlier.

Some investors and experts have been frustrated by a lack of information regarding the restructuring and Shanks stated the company still has nothing to declare at this time.

“Nothing has changed in terms of providing a lot of information,” Shanks informed reporters at the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.

“I know it’s frustrating,” Shanks later informed analysts on a conference call. “One can’t go to the last page of the book and look at the ending. It’s got to sort of unfold.”