Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Wednesday, April 30.
Today's headlines are littered with General Motors, Stellantis and other automotive companies around the world withdrawing their Wall Street "guidance" because of the uncertainty created by President Donald Trump's tariff blitz and subsequent revisions.
But remember, even in normal times this guidance is a gigantic guess on the part of public companies to tell investors what to expect.
Then, when the companies announce results, their performance often isn't measured by the actual numbers. The Street usually evaluates them based on whether they did better or worse than the analyst expectations that were based on the original guidance guesswork.
Read more: Live updates on tariff news and impacts
Interactive map: Auto manufacturing sites in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico
On Tuesday, the Trump administration refined how the tariffs are going to work with auto parts, metals and so forth. It might be enough for some companies to run some numbers and create a new round of guesses to give investors. GM is apparently going to try this tomorrow.
Meanwhile, first-quarter gross domestic product statistics came out this morning and didn't look good — the U.S. economy slipped by 0.3 percent on an annualized, inflation-adjusted basis.
Among automakers, Stellantis probably felt this more than others. As Vince Bond Jr. reports today, North American revenue slipped 25 percent to $16.3 billion, which Stellantis attributed to lower volumes and lower prices because of increased incentives. Shipments fell 20 percent in the quarter.
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Mercedes-Benz, like other European automakers, is facing tough decisions this year, as Peter Sigal of Automotive News Europe reports. CEO Ola Källenius said today that the tariffs — assuming they remain in place until the end of this year at levels announced as of March 12 — will cost Mercedes about 3 percentage points of return on sales. Mercedes has "levers" to pull to mitigate the effect of the tariffs on a short- and long-term basis, Källenius said in the story.
"It's a dynamic environment that I haven't seen in my 32 years with the company," he said.
Mercedes has unused capacity at its plant in Vance, Ala., which makes the EQE and EQS EVs. But adding a model — potentially the GLC — will take time, Källenius said, including building up a network of suppliers to ensure more localized content. Källenius said Mercedes is going through every component not already built in the U.S. to see if it can be moved there.
Ford Motor Co.'s latest answer to the tariff uncertainty? The automaker said today it is extending its employee-pricing-for-all discounts to July 6. Michael Martinez reports that the "From America, For America" campaign launched April 3 initially was to end June 2. It gives access to "A Plan" pricing on nearly all Ford and Lincoln models, cutting thousands of dollars off the cost of most vehicles.
Finally, getting back to GM, the automaker will face serious challenges with its latest recall of V-8 engines in light trucks, according to this story by Richard Truett. The voluntary recall, involving 721,000 6.2-liter V-8 engines in Chevrolet and GMC pickups and in all of the company's large SUVs, is a rare misfire for one of GM's corporate crown jewels.
The faulty engine, made at GM's Tonawanda, N.Y., plant, is not just another motor. It is the latest evolution of the workhorse Chevrolet small-block V-8, Truett writes.
Looking ahead to Thursday, we'll have coverage of April U.S. sales from the automakers that still report monthly results. The numbers could give us early hints about second-quarter results.
That's about all the guidance we can give for now. Have a great rest of your day.
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
