Ford Motor Company was an early pioneer of industrial production, with Ford having developed the assembly line production of automobiles and used this to capture a dominant position in the U.S. automobile market. The company has remained dominant but fell upon difficult times in recent years due to a combination of poor product/marketing and high pension obligations. The company has begun to revive its fortunes in the past couple of years, however, and is once again pursuing leadership in the automobile industry.
Ford remains focused on the consumer automobile industry. The company sells a variety of cars, trucks and vans in dozens of markets around the world. The products are often tailored to local markets (i.e. smaller cars in Europe). Ford also generates a significant portion of its income from its financial arm, Ford Credit (Ford.com, 2011).
The GDP is the gross domestic product and is the aggregate figure describing the value of all domestic economic activity. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the GDP is current dollars (nominal) is $14.65 trillion. The GDP in chained 2005 dollars (real) is $13.245 trillion. GDP growth has improved slightly over the past several months.
According to the Conference Board, the Help Wanted Online Index dropped -27,400 in February after adding 438,000 jobs in January. The figure essentially means that new job postings online were stable for the month. Demand remains well below...
The index currently sits at 4.245 million.
The inventory to sales ratio is tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This level is currently at 1.23. This is at a very low level historically. There is a long-term downward trend in this ratio, and while this was interrupted by the recession the trend has resumed since 2009. Firms have reduced their inventories to pre-recession levels at this point.
The discount rate is set by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. This is the rate at which the Fed banks lend to depository institutions. As such, the discount rate is the basic interest rate, with most other rates in the banking system being based upon the current level of the discount rate. The current discount rate is 0.75%, which is unchanged from the previous level. There are two governors seeking to increase the discount rate but at present most of the board wants to maintain the current spread between the Federal Open Market Committees target range for the federal funds rate and the discount rate (Federal Reserve.gov, 2011).
I believe that Ford will see the GDP as rising. The GDP's rate of growth slipped in the last month but is on a medium-term rising trend. The action taken by the Fed's Board of Governors to maintain the existing discount rate will continue to deliver an expansionary monetary policy that…
