It should come as no surprise as legacy automaker Ford (F) faces another big recall. Thankfully, this recall is big, but it is also comparatively minor and surprisingly limited. Keeping that in mind, you will likely find yourself without surprise to note that Ford shares are down fractionally in Friday afternoon’s trading.
Elevate Your Investing Strategy:
- Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence.
On the surface, this is bad news. Ford announced a recall of around 102,000 cars, which is a fairly major event in either isolation or in comparison. But the good news here is that the recall is both, as mentioned previously, limited in nature and a fairly simple fix.
The recall this time is limited to Ford Taurus cars. That alone should raise an eyebrow with United States readers, as the Taurus has not been sold in the United States since 2019. The recall, reports note, covers Taurus models from 2016 to 2019 sold in the United States, and addresses a matter of parts of the door trim. These parts can fly off while driving, and in turn become a road hazard or an outright crash risk to other drivers. Ford dealers are once again on the hook here, and will handle inspections and perform fixes as need be for no charge.
“Deployable Workstations”
Meanwhile, more exciting news emerged from the patent front, as another potential new Ford innovation emerged: deployable workstations. Those words are perfectly viable English all by themselves, but what do they mean? Well, almost exactly what the name suggests.
Patent documents suggest that Ford has an idea in mind for a kind of structure, like a work table, that folds up tightly and lays alongside the tailgate on a pickup. The documents almost suggest that the table structures could be incorporated into the tailgate itself, and removed and unfolded as needed. It is almost like carrying a branded card table around as part of your pickup’s tailgate. The workstation would be mounted on swing arms, almost like tailgate arms themselves, that could be folded back into the tailgate itself.
Is Ford Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on F stock based on three Buys, eight Holds and three Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 7.9% rally in its share price over the past year, the average F price target of $10.77 per share implies 7.71% downside risk.
