HOG - Harley-Davidson Falls As It Couldn't Match Wall Street's Optimism
Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG) posted its best results in three years in the fourth quarter. Not that they were very good, as sales continued to decline, but there were enough highlights it could point to to make it look like the motorcycle maker's business is stabilizing.
Unfortunately, it looks like the future will see Harley-Davidson as a much smaller company, but at least it seems to still have a future.
Harley said U.S. motorcycle sales fell 3.1%, the smallest decline it's seen in 12 quarters, on a 6% decline in shipments, indicating the bike maker is interested in getting dealer inventory right. But make no mistake, the bar Harley jumped over was set very low as sales in the year-ago (2018) fourth quarter had tumbled more than 10%, a figure that itself was going up against an easy comparison from 2017, when quarterly sales fell 11%.