Ford Stock Jumps as It Grinds Out an Earnings Beat in a Quarter of Setbacks

Coming into Thursday trading, Ford stock was up 26% year to date, shaking off fears that tariffs would raise car prices and choke off demand for new vehicles. (Joe Raedle/Getty Image)

Key Points

• Ford reported a third-quarter operating profit of $2.6 billion on record sales of $50.5 billion, exceeding Wall Street expectations.
• The company’s full-year 2025 operating profit guidance was lowered to $6 billion to $6.5 billion due to a supplier fire.
• Ford’s stock rose 3.2% in after-hours trading, and its EV division reduced per-car losses to about $28,000.

Ford Motor delivered another strong quarter amid a bevy of industry headwinds ranging from federal policies to supplier fires. The stock is rising.

Thursday afternoon, Ford reported a third-quarter operating profit of $2.6 billion from a record $50.5 billion in sales. Wall Street was looking for an operating profit of $2 billion from revenue of $47 billion. A year ago, in the third quarter of 2024, Ford reported an operating profit of $2.6 billion from revenue of $46 billion.

Shares jumped 12.4% on Friday to $13.84, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.8% and 1%, respectively.

Ford is the last of the big U.S.-based auto makers to report earnings. General Motors beat Wall Street expectations while Tesla fell short. U.S. new car demand has been remarkably resilient, up 4% year over year through August.

Ford benefited from higher vehicle sales. In the U.S., it sold about 546,000 vehicles in the third quarter, up 8% year over year.

The auto maker managed to produce flat operating profit year over year, despite a $700 million headwind from tariffs. Earnings per share came in at 45 cents, a dime better than Wall Street projections.

Along with earnings, Ford provided updated guidance. Management expects full-year 2025 operating profit to land between $6 billion and $6.5 billion. In July, management said it expected 2025 operating profit to land between $6.5 billion and $7.5 billion.

That looks like a cut, but a fire at aluminum supplier Novelis will cost Ford between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in lost production and higher sourcing costs. Excluding Novelis’ impacts, guidance would have been raised, likely to a range of $7.5 billion to $8.5 billion.

Ford is planning to increase F-series production volume by more than 50,000 trucks in 2026, creating 1,000 jobs, to “meet strong demand and recover production losses stemming from the fire.”

The supplier fire was just the latest in a long line of issues faced by the entire car business this year. Import tariffs have helped send the average price of a new car above $50,000. What’s more, federal electric vehicle support is gone, roiling product and spending plans across the industry. (General Motors recently took a billion-dollar charge to write down some EV assets.)

Through it all, Ford stock has done fine, despite some of its own quality issues that have cost it hundreds of millions of dollars. Coming into Thursday trading, Ford stock was up 26% in 2025 at $12.43, despite trading as low as $8.44 in April.

Third-quarter results shouldn’t hurt investor sentiment. Ford’s traditional car and commercial businesses generated strong profits. Ford’s EV division shrunk its per-car losses to about $28,000 per car from closer to $38,000 a year ago. Ford Credit reported a $631 million operating profit, up 16% year over year.

The supplier fire creates some confusion, but Ford delivered the “beat and raise” investors hoped for.

It might be what investors needed. Expectations for Ford earnings were rising. Coming into Thursday trading, Ford stock was up 4.2% for the week, boosted by GM’s better-than-expected results that sent its shares up 14.9% on Tuesday.

There has been a lot of drama in car stocks lately. The ride isn’t over yet.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com