A snapshot of motorcycle and ATV industry share performance across key manufacturers and major global markets at the trading week closure on Friday 16 May 2025. BDN financial editor Roger Willis reports.
USA — GAME OVER
The most reliable feature of US President Trump is his utterly unreliable nature. Thus it was with Trump’s extremist trade war versus China, which evaporated overnight, turning into an instant deal with the Chinese to cut tariffs. Following talks in Switzerland, both the US and China agreed to knock tit-for-tat tariffs on the head for at least the next 90 days.
Wall Street stocks completely wiped out their losses so far this year as lower than expected US inflation figures added fuel to the rally sparked by Trump’s sudden about-face deal. Market indices climbed stratospherically. The blue-chip S&P 500 closed 5.3% up and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 3.4%. S&P’s MidCap 400 rose by 4.8% and, saving the best for last, tech stocks — which had been the biggest victims of April’s sell-off — led these gains, NASDAQ’s Composite soaring by a spectacular 7.2%.
MidCap biker stocks featured in this celebration and gigantic sigh of relief. Harley-Davidson and its LiveWire electric bike spin-off were double beneficiaries, after a shareholder meeting also rejected leading activist investor H Partners attempt to boot CEO Jochen Zeitz and two other directors off the Harley board, confirming them in place for the rest of this fiscal year (although Zeitz is due to shuffle off into retirement anyway, as soon as a suitable replacement has been found.) Polaris, with embarrassing connections to China for components and off-shored ORV manufacturing in Mexico, also bounced back, as did the share price of Niu Technologies, the major electric delivery scooter operation which is entirely dependent on products sourced in China.
| Currency: dollar | Price | Week | Month |
| Harley-Davidson | 24.20 | +4.1% | +7.5% |
| Polaris Industries | 39.24 | +7.9% | +18.3% |
| Niu Technologies | 3.81 | +13.7% | +30.9% |
| LiveWire | 1.16 | +16% | -44.2% |
EUROPE — SHARP EYES ON AMERICA
Investment analysts on our side of the Atlantic took due notice of Trump’s ill-fated experiment with tariffs being scaled back and looked for opportunities. Key market indices were positive but lacked the strength of the US rally. In Germany, Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax put on 1.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB in Milan closed a more solid 3.3% up. The fact that the European Commission is yet to take a firm stance (or any stance…) on Trump’s disruptive vagaries is definitely being noted with care. Teutonic automotives are keeping corporate mouths shut until Trump’s latest prognostications on vehicle imports are clarified.
On a brighter perspective, the Wiener Börse ATX in Austria rose by 2.8% and KTM parent Pierer Mobility’s stocks staged a modest recovery. That probably suggested that the company’s supply-chain difficulties are being rectified. Piaggio shares also expressed a degree of recovery, with the scooter manufacturer’s Q1 results reporting imminent.
| Currency: euro | Price | Week | Month |
| BMW | 76.92 | -3.5% | +9.4% |
| Volkswagen | 103.40 | +1.4% | +13.1% |
| Pierer Mobility | 16.94 | +29.3% | +28.5% |
| Piaggio Group | 1.85 | +12.1% | +3.4% |
JAPAN — STILL IN THE WAITING ROOM
The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo and Osaka only managed 0.7% positivity, reflecting Japan’s sense of limbo afflicting the US lack of decisive intervention for or against its automotive exports. Honda’s share price slumped, alongside that of Toyota, faced with threats to their car exports. Otherwise, Honda had plenty to smile about, given its motorcycle business had sold more than 20 million bikes during the 2024/25 fiscal year. A Q1 report on Yamaha’s biker activities was altogether smothered in gloom, though.
| Currency: yen | Price | Week | Month |
| Honda | 1406 | -5.2% | +0.8% |
| Yamaha | 1072.5 | -6.4% | -2.5% |
| Suzuki | 1769.5 | -1.4% | +5.8% |
| Kawasaki | 8859 | +7.1% | +10.9% |
INDIA — FLASH, BANG, WALLOP
After a brief burst of full-on warfare between India and Pakistan, Donald Trump claimed all the credit for negotiating a cease-fire and end to hostilities. The Indian and Pakistani governments agreed with each other that he hadn’t been involved whatsoever. The most entertaining aspect proved to be reportage that one of Pakistan’s extremely cheap and cheerful Chinese-made jet fighters had successfully shot down a vastly more expensive and technologically superior French-built Dassault Rafale fighter belonging to the Indian Air Force. Whoops! There is allegedly no truth in the rumour that every exported item of military equipment from France is supplied with a complimentary white flag…
Once peace had definitely been declared, and ignoring the various claims for responsibility, Mumbai’s Bombay and National stock exchanges rallied tremendously. Their respective market indices, The S&P BSE Sensex 30 and NSE Nifty 50, closed 3.6% and 4.2% up. And investors apparently went on a shopping spree for motorcycle stocks, boosting the corporate values of all five Indian bike producers.
| Currency: rupee | Price | Week | Month |
| Hero MotoCorp | 4345.30 | +12.7% | +15.2% |
| Bajaj Auto | 8482.50 | +10.4% | +5.8% |
| TVS Motor | 2841.50 | +6.7% | +6.1% |
| Eicher Motors | 5509.50 | +3.5% | -3% |
| Mahindra | 3135.60 | +5.1% | +17% |
CHINA — HEDGING CHINESE BETS
While the Beijing government formally expressed satisfaction at a US-China trade pact concluded in Zurich earlier in the week, confidence in its longevity didn’t run very deep. Shanghai and Shenzhen stocks, as expressed by Shanghai’s SSE Composite and the CSI 300 indices were all over the place. Half of the listed Chinese motorcycle manufacturers tracked here lost value. Trust in the US government and Trump in particular is paper thin.
| Currency: yuan | Price | Week | Month |
| Qianjiang | 15.87 | +1% | -3.3% |
| Zongshen | 22.93 | -3.8% | +17.8% |
| Sundiro | 4.75 | +6.7% | +15.3% |
| CETC (Jialing) | 12.00 | -1.2% | +0.1% |
| Qianli (Lifan) | 8.71 | -3.3% | +1.5% |
| Loncin | 13.02 | -1.1% | +9.7% |
| Linhai | 10.50 | +2.1% | +10.4% |
| Guangzhou Auto Group | 8.03 | +0.2% | +0.4% |
| CFMoto | 180.00 | +6.6% | +19.4% |
| Xinri E-Vehicle | 11.44 | -0.3% | +16.9% |