SHARE PRICES AND MARKET ANALYSIS

A snapshot of motorcycle and ATV industry share performance across key manufacturers and major global markets at the trading week closure on Friday 28 March 2025. BDN financial editor Roger Willis reports.

USA — TRUMP AUTO TARIFFS UNLEASHED

The US president’s 25% levy on imported cars and trucks, along with foreign-sourced parts and sub-assemblies for notionally American vehicles, hammered America’s home-grown automotive industry — threatening much higher inflation and a slump in consumer spending. A battery of “reciprocal tariffs” is scheduled to follow shortly, impacting the global auto business. Share prices for General Motors, Ford, etc, and leading parts makers such as Borg Warner all plunged.

Inevitably, Wall Street market indices fell across the board. The blue-chip S&P 500 closed 1.5% down, S&P’s MidCap 400 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average booked 1% losses and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite took the worst hit, 2.6% in arrears. Prominent US biker stocks remained pathetically weak, already punished by 50% revenge tariffs from Europe after Trump punished overseas steel and aluminium exporters to the US.

Harley-Davidson was typical, its share price still rattling around either side of a 25-buck mark for weeks on end. Desperately trying to cope with declining domestic bike sales, as well as scuppered exports to Europe, the company has now resorted to discounting. Its latest 2025-model Nightster is available for one dollar short of $10,000, the cheapest big-inch Harley trying to bolster struggling dealers on home turf. The brand’s LiveWire electric spin-off products are also reportedly rumoured to require big discounts to attract showroom traffic.

EUROPE — ON THE RECEIVING END

Trump’s attack on the European automotive industry hit both key eurozone market indices and the big Teutonic automotives with biker sidelines — BMW and Ducati parent VW — hard. Volkswagen sports car spin-off Porsche also announced that it would diversify into the defence market. (VW founder Ferdinand Porsche used to design panzers for the Waffen SS, so there is some historic connection there).

Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax finished the week 1.9% down and the FTSE MIB in Milan was 0.8% in arrears. The Wiener Börse ATX in Austria suffered a 2% loss, as KTM parent Pierer’s share price declined, as did Piaggio Group’s value in Italy.

JAPAN — AN AMERICAN AUTO TARIFF TARGET

Tokyo and Osaka’s key Nikkei 225 stock index dropped by 1.5%, responding to the arrival of tariffs on large-scale Japanese car exports to America. Honda, which probably has the most indigenous exposure to American automotive sales, took a major share price assault. But Kawasaki’s monthly advance was indicative of its extensive (and protective) defence contracts with the US Navy, rather than Team Green’s powersports division.

INDIA — CASHING IN THEIR CHIPS?

Mumbai’s S&P BSE Sensex 30 and NSE Nifty 50 market indices remained modestly positive in unison, both posting 0.7% gains. However, indigenous motorcycle manufacturer performance was mixed, suggesting investor profit-taking indulgence. Overall on a monthly basis, Royal Enfield parent Eicher was clearly ahead of the game, while Bajaj wasn’t.

CHINA — CUNNING PLANS?

Chinese president Xi Jinping hosted a mass gathering of predominantly European captains of industry in Beijing during the past week. Some really big-league players were invited and in attendance but, notably, Americans were deliberately excluded. The most significant missing Yank was Elon Musk, who has extensive business interests in China, manufacturing and marketing Tesla cars there. Possibly not for much longer.

It was fairly obvious that the gathering was geared to helping China evade Donald Trump’s tariff-based trade war with differing economic solutions. But whatever conclusions materialised, they clearly weren’t for public revelation yet.

There has to be a measure of urgency for the Chinese, though, as the US plots to damage China’s outreach by every means it can create. The writing is already on the wall for equities trading through the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. Transaction volumes are already shrinking. In the past week, Shanghai’s SSE Composite index shrank by 0.4%, while the blue-chip CSI 300 absolutely flatlined. Among the ten listed Chinese motorcycle producers we track, eight suffered net losses for their share valuations. The two that prospered were Loncin and CFMoto, both of which manufacture under contract to European customers — BMW Motorrad and KTM.