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 25 October 2024. BDN financial editor Roger Willis reports.

USA — ELECTORAL DISTRACTION
Despite more impressive Q3 results, particularly from the tech sector, many Wall Street stocks dipped as investors turned cautious ahead of the looming US presidential and congressional election — which is increasingly unpredictable.

Market indices inevitably reflected these concerns. The blue-chip S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average respectively finished 1% and 2.7% in arrears week-on-week. Only NASDAQ’s tech-heavy Composite kept its head above the ramparts, 0.2% up.

S&P’S MidCap 400 fell by a firmer 2.8%, though, typicallly highlighting the quarterly woes of biker stocks within its ranks. Their Q3 figures, assailed by higher interest rates for consumers and weak demand, saw significant sell-offs for Harley-Davidson and its LiveWire sparky subsidiary, along with Indian Motorcycle parent Polaris. Ideanomics disappeared from our listing altogether, given that it no longer has a PTW ownership presence after the collapse of Italian electric superbike manufacturer Energica into the oblivion of bankruptcy.

EUROPE — NOT A HAPPY PLACE
A three-day losing streak wiped the smile off European investor faces, with a number of factors in play. Unresolved warfare in the Middle East was just one of them. Anticipation of weak Q3 reports from Europe’s automotive firmament was another. Key market indices told the story. Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax closed 1% down, after recovering from its steepest one-day loss in a month. The FTSE MIB in Milan suffered from a dose of swings and roundabouts too, culminating in a 1.2% retreat.

But Austria’s Weiner Börse ATX fared worst, sliding by 1.3% as the exchange’s only prominent biker stock plummeted by a painful 36%. Pierer Mobility, struggling parent of the KTM, Husqvarna, GasGas and MV Agusta brands, had massacred its executive board from six to just two members, leaving  eponymous chief executive Stefan Pierer and the recently recruited Gottfried Neumeister in sole charge. The company also tore up its full-year financial forecasts and said a further profit warning was imminent.

JAPAN — ADJUSTMENTS EXPECTED
Japan’s key Tokyo/Osaka Nikkei 225 stock index fell sharply again, this time 2.7% down, as a string of of disappointing half-yearly corporate reports began to land on investors’ desks. Expecting more negativity, minus signs appeared on the share prices of all four indigenous motorcycle brands with only a few days to go before their respective results revelations.

INDIA — SEASONAL FERTILISER HITS THE FAN
AS the run into towards the Diwali Festival of Lights — India’s version of Xmas — gathered pace, S&P’s BSE Sensex 30 and the NSE Nifty 50 stock indices festered in a fourth consecutive week of negative trading, with increased respective losses of 2.2% and 2.7%. The reason was made clear by an announcement from motorcycle manufacturing major Bajaj Auto, a significant slump in Diwali festive sales for its products, which analysts assumed would apply equally to its competitors and the broader market for higher-end seasonal consumer spending.

CHINA — MORE PROMISES
Chinese president Xi Jinping’s “reverse ferret” on detailed plans to stimulate China’s struggling economy continued to dig him out of a self-inflicted hole, as stock market indices brightened mightily. Shanghai’s SSE Composite put on 1.2% and the blue-chip Shanghai/Shenzhen CSI 300 rose by 0.8%. Biker stocks mostly clawed back recent losses and some of them went positively ballistic.