Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Monday, July 21.
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa made a preemptive strike on Wall Street today, releasing a whole bunch of bad news — led by disclosure of a $2.7 billion net loss for the first half of 2025 — before the company reports the full six-month results July 29.
By midday, Stellantis stock was rising, presumably because investors believe Filosa is putting the company's many financial challenges in the rearview mirror in hopes of showing progress in the second half.
In a letter to employees, Filosa, who took charge of the company in late June, said the first six months of 2025 had been "tough ... with increasing external headwinds including tariffs, foreign exchange effects and challenging macro-economic conditions," Reuters reported.
"Despite difficulties, it has also been six months of meaningful progress compared to the second half of 2024," Filosa added, pointing to new product launches and decisions to cut underperforming programs.
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The automaker's results were "worse than consensus, but we think poor numbers were anticipated," Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois said in a client note reported by Reuters.
Restructuring steps taken by Stellantis "suggest decisive actions," Bernstein analysts wrote.
And a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst said Filosa is trying to "kitchen sink" the first-half results "to provide a low earnings base upon which to build."
All this suggests Filosa will get at least six more months of a honeymoon from Wall Street to show meaningful progress in fixing the automaker.
But given the uncertainty of global trade politics, a difficult environment for North American sales and growing turbulence over electric vehicles, Filosa's plate is absolutely full and probably overloaded.
Nissan Motor Co., another automaker facing global headwinds, appears poised to shutter some operations in Mexico as part of its latest cost-cutting efforts.
Two people with knowledge of the matter told our Urvaksh Karkaria that Nissan is expected to shut down its nearly 60-year-old Civac plant in south-central Mexico no later than March 2027, the end of the Japanese carmaker's business year. Additionally, Nissan is expected to dissolve its COMPAS joint venture with Mercedes after crossover production at the 2.37-million-square-foot factory in Aguascalientes, Mexico, concludes early next year.
That's it for now. Have a great rest of your day. If you want to read this story in your browser, click here.
— Philip Nussel, online editor
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