A snapshot of motorcycle and ATV industry share performance across key manufacturers and major global markets at the trading week closure on Friday 18 April 2025. BDN financial editor Roger Willis reports.
USA — VOLATILITY INCREASES
US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, America’s key central banker, rejected President Trump’s demand for a cut in interest rates point-blank, as the risk of a global recession grew in response to his tariff-led trade warfare. Wall Street stocks crashed again midweek as Trump’s latest tariff imposition on China blocked semiconductor exports to the Chinese from US chip giant Nvidia, which now faces an immediate 5.5 billion dollar loss and plunging share price.
Most New York market indices finished the week in arrears as investors ran for cover once more, checking out early in the traditional Good Friday god-bothering closure. The blue-chip S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average ended respectively 1.5% and 2.7% down. Tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite stocks were 2.6% adrift. S&P’s MidCap 400 managed to keep its head above water by 0.8%. MidCap biker shares struggled to make any sort of impression. Harley-Davidson continued to lurk in 22-buck territory while its LiveWire electric spin-off teetered on the brink of just two dollars. Indian Motorcycle parent and ATV maker Polaris posted yet another downwards slide.
| Currency: dollar | Price | Week | Month |
| Harley-Davidson | 22.51 | +0.4% | -8.9% |
| Polaris Industries | 33.18 | -1.7% | -21% |
| Textron | 66.04 | +0.8% | -9.6% |
| Niu Technologies | 2.91 | +6.2% | -24.8% |
| LiveWire | 2.08 | -12.2% | +3% |
EUROPE — KEEPING CARDS COVERED
With its tariff face-off temporarily suspended, the European Commission avoided unnecessary provocations and eurozone investors took advantage of the lull. Stable stock activity during the four-day week saw market indices remarkably boosted. Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax enjoyed a 4.1% lift and the FTSE MIB in Milan put on 5.7%. German automotives felt less menaced and stacked on value. Even Piaggio in Italy marked time, maintaining the previous week’s price.
In Austria, the Wiener Börse ATX surged by 5.4%. But unfortunately Austrian investor largesse didn’t extend to Pierer Mobility and its now reinvigorated KTM plant in Mattighofen. Pierer shares slumped by 8.7%.
An FT commentator suggested the prescient advice of Gaullism was going mainstream again. French president Emmanuel Macron’s call for Europe to break free from the Americans was echoed by German chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz from a renovated führerbunker in Berlin. Maybe even Keir Starmer will take due note.
| Currency: euro | Price | Week | Month |
| BMW | 70.26 | +5.9% | -11.2% |
| Volkswagen | 91.40 | +4.3% | -11.9% |
| Pierer Mobility | 13.18 | -8.7% | -29.7% |
| Piaggio Group | 1.79 | N/A | -11.4% |
JAPAN — BRING OUT THE BEGGING BOWL
Tokyo and Osaka’s key Nikkei 225 stock index climbed by 3.4%, as Japan was granted face-to-face talks in the first chance to strike a deal on Trump’s punitively expensive “reciprocal” tariffs. Top Japanese trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa flew to Washington for a meeting with Trump, alongside his treasury secretary Scott Bessent and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick. Akazawa is expected to put eye-bleedingly severe automotive tariffs high on his priority list, given the millions of Japanese cars currently shipped to the US.
Unsurprisingly, the share prices of indigenous automotive and motorcycle brands gained in advance. Rest assured the Japanese negotiating team will assiduously avoid “woke” jokes about Bessent’s husband John Freeman and the two children they have fathered together.
| Currency: yen | Price | Week | Month |
| Honda | 1394.5 | +6% | -7.2% |
| Yamaha | 1100 | +2.7% | -2.3% |
| Suzuki | 1672.5 | +6.5% | -11.2% |
| Kawasaki | 7987 | +5.4% | -16.2% |
INDIA — BLESSED BY APPLE
News that Apple had rejected any possibility of “on-shoring” its iPhone production back to the US from China — despite fancifully impractical Trumpesque blandishments in that direction — and instead planned to transfer the entire operation lock, stock and barrel to vast new factories already under construction on the Indian sub-continent, sent Indian investors (and politicians) into a state of absolute ecstacy.
In Mumbai, S&P’s BSE Sensex 30 and the NSE Nifty 50 market indices both leapt skywards by 4.5%. All and sundry judiciously ignored the fact that Trump’s minions are bound to increase the 27%-plus “reciprocal” tariffs with which they are already threatening the country. Inevitably, investor excitement spread to other Indian economy sectors. The share prices of all five local motorcycle manufacturers enjoyed such boosts.
| Currency: rupee | Price | Week | Month |
| Hero MotoCorp | 3771.80 | +2.9% | +3.9% |
| Bajaj Auto | 8018.00 | +3.3% | -0.6% |
| TVS Motor | 2679.30 | +6.6% | +11% |
| Eicher Motors | 5678.50 | +6.1% | +7% |
| Mahindra | 2679.40 | +3.8% | -4.4% |
CHINA — LONG MARCH REVISITED
Donald Trump’s extremist 145% tariff imposition on the Chinese almost immediately started to crumble, with various “short-term” exceptions surfacing. Evidence also emerged of Beijing government moves to play “hard ball” with the arrogant US stance. One example was that China had quietly ceased to import liquified natural gas from US sources more than two months ago. Another was the obviously advance-planned acquisition of its huge soya-bean requirements from friendly Latin American countries, rather than US farmers. It is also rapidly ramping up oil and gas imports from Russia, by sea and through pipelines. Basically, the Chinese are hunkering down for a long fight.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going, as China’s internal economy is demonstrating in spades. A variety of exports to European markets have perked up recently and business activity growth is palpable. As for market indices, Shanghai’s SSE Composite finished the past week 1.2% up. And CSI 300 blue-chips quoted in Shanghai and Shenzhen held station with a 0.6% rise. Investor confidence is clearly improving, despite external pressures. Within the ten listed motorcycle producers we track, eight of them made modest gains.
| Currency: yuan | Price | Week | Month |
| Qianjiang | 16.41 | +0.4% | -8.9% |
| Zongshen | 19.46 | +1.2% | -13.2% |
| Sundiro | 4.12 | +4.6% | -14.9% |
| CETC (Jialing) | 11.99 | -2% | -6.7% |
| Qianli (Lifan) | 8.58 | +5.5% | +1.3% |
| Loncin | 11.87 | +6% | +11.2% |
| Linhai | 9.51 | +4.9% | -5.7% |
| Guangzhou Auto Group | 8.00 | +0.4% | -6.3% |
| CFMoto | 150.75 | -5.9% | -15.7% |
| Xinri E-Vehicle | 9.78 | +2.4% | -13.7% |