Why Specialty Vehicle Stocks Were Slumping This Week
One of the more interesting niches in the mighty automobile industry is specialty vehicles. After all, consumers don't only want cars, trucks, and motorcycles for everyday use, they also like zipping around on off-road machines and going airborne with purpose-built, next-generation aircraft. Yet the specialty business is at times even more cyclical than mainstream auto, and on discouraging recent news the cycle seemed to be approaching a low.
Leading the deceleration trend was Polaris (NYSE: PII), which reported fresh quarterly results and was down 14% in share price week to date as of early Friday, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The same source indicated that (NASDAQ: DOOO) was sinking by 11%, and Joby Aviation (NYSE: JOBY) shares had shed almost 8% of their value.
The most direct news item impacting specialty vehicles as a group was that Polaris earnings report. Quite frankly there wasn't an awful lot to like in those third-quarter numbers, particularly the 23% year-over-year sales decline reported by the manufacturer of off-road vehicles and motorcycles. Compounding that, the $1.72 billion in sales and net income of $0.73 per share came in well short of the consensus analyst estimates.
Source Fool.com
