Stubborn warranty costs push down Ford’s 2Q net profits, causing stock plunge in after-hours trading
DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co.’s second-quarter net income fell 4.7% from a year ago as the company’s combustion engine unit saw pretax profits decline due to stubbornly high warranty costs. The Dearborn, Michigan, automaker said Wednesday it made $1.83 billion from April through June. Excluding one-time items, Ford made 47 cents per share, far below analysts’ estimates of 68 cents. The profit drop caused a stock sell off. Ford shares plunged more than 11% in after-hours trading Wednesday. The automaker reported $47.8 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 6.3% increase over the $44.95 billion in the second quarter of 2023.
US files details of Boeing’s plea deal related to plane crashes. It’s in the hands of a judge now
The Justice Department has filed an agreement in which Boeing will plead guilty to a fraud charge for misleading regulators who approved the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed, killing 346 people. The detailed plea agreement was filed Wednesday in federal district court in Texas. The American aerospace company and the Justice Department reached a deal on the guilty plea and the agreement’s broad terms earlier this month. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor can accept the agreement and the sentence worked out between Boeing and prosecutors, or he could reject it. Some of the passengers’ relatives plan to ask the judge to deny the plea deal.
Southwest breaks 50-year tradition, plans to start assigning seats
Southwest Airlines is doing away with a 50-year tradition and plans to start assigning seats. The airline is also looking to introduce redeye flights. The airline said Thursday that it has been studying customer preferences and expectations and that its plans are in part to meet customer demands, but also are a way to bring in more revenue and strengthen its financial performance.
Carmaker Stellantis pledges to tackle problems in North America as profits plunge
MILAN (AP) — Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares pledged action to tackle problems in North America and elsewhere after reporting a plunge in first-half earnings. Net profits at the U.S.-European automaker were down by half in the first six months of the year, due largely to lower sales and restructuring costs. The carmaker, which was created in 2021 from the merger of Fiat-Chrysler with PSA Peugeot, reported net profits of just over 6 billion dollars in the period, compared with slightly under 12 billion dollars in the same period last year. Tavares singled out North America as a place where there is “significant work to do,” citing issues with inventory management and sliding market share.
NBA says it has signed new 11-year media rights deal with Disney, NBC and Amazon
The NBA signed its 11-year media rights deal with Disney, NBC and Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday after saying it was not accepting Warner Bros. Discovery’s $1.8 billion per year offer to continue its longtime relationship with the league. The media rights deals were approved by the league’s Board of Governors last week and will bring the league about $76 billion over those 11 years. WBD had five days to match a part of those deals and said it was exercising its right to do so, but its offer was not considered a true match by the NBA. It says it will now take appropriate action.
Japanese automaker Nissan lowers its profit forecast amid incentive, inventory woes
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan has lowered its full fiscal year outlook after the Japanese automaker reported a 73% decline in profit in the April-June quarter compared to the previous year. Chief Executive Makoto Uchida called the results “very challenging,” blaming sales incentives and marketing expenses amid intense competition, especially in the U.S. market. Nissan shares fell 7% in Tokyo on Thursday. Such challenges came despite global vehicle sales holding steady at 787,000, according to Nissan. Quarterly sales edged up 3%. The need to optimize inventory also chipped away at profitability. Nissan’s fiscal first quarter profit declined to 28.6 billion yen, or $187 million.
Google’s corporate parent still prospering amid shift injecting more AI technology in search
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google’s corporate parent Alphabet Inc. delivered another quarter of steady growth amid an AI-driven shift in the ubiquitous search engine that is the foundation of its internet empire. The second-quarter report released Tuesday indicated Google is still reeling in advertisers. It comes on the heels of the May introduction of an artificial intelligence feature that produces conversational responses to people’s search queries while downplaying its traditional display of related links to other websites. Alphabet posted double-digit growth in both its revenue and profit during the April-June period, eclipsing analyst projections. The company’s stock seesawed from slightly declines to minor gains after the report came out.
Tesla’s 2Q profit falls 45% to $1.48 billion as sales drop despite price cuts and low-interest loans
DETROIT (AP) — Tesla’s second-quarter net income fell 45% compared with a year ago as the company’s global electric vehicle sales tumbled despite price cuts and low-interest financing. The Austin, Texas, company said Tuesday that it made $1.48 billion from April through June, less than the $2.7 billion it made in the same period of 2023. It was Tesla’s second-straight quarterly net income decline. Second quarter revenue rose 2% to $25.5 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $24.54 billion, according to FactSet. Excluding one time items, Tesla made 52 cents per share, below analyst expectations of 61 cents. Earlier this month Tesla said it sold 443,956 vehicles from April through June, down 4.8% from 466,140 sold the same period a year ago.
Africa’s demand for cooling systems is expanding. But regulating the industry is a struggle
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Due to warmer temperatures and increasing urbanization, the market for cooling systems is expanding in Africa. But the chemicals that make air conditioning and refrigeration work are very potent at heating the planet, and an older one called R-22, which is still very common in Africa, is also harmful to the ozone layer. Though African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya have enacted regulations for the use of refrigerants in the cooling industry, they struggle with enforcement, making the climate change impact of that sector soaring. And more energy-efficient units are too expensive for many, while there are not enough trained technicians for the sustainable alternative R-290, which is highly flammable.
CrowdStrike blames bug for letting bad data slip through, leading to global tech outage
NEW YORK (AP) — CrowdStrike has blamed a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers. That set off last week’s global tech outage that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers. CrowdStrike also outlined measures it would take to prevent the problem from repeating, including staggering the rollout of updates, giving customers more control over when and where they occur, and providing more details about the updates that it plans. The problem centered around an “undetected error” in the content-configuration update for its Falcon platform affecting Windows machines that allowed “problematic content data” to be deployed to CrowdStrike’s customers.
