Detroit’s car firms try to match Silicon Valley
But for now their stockmarket valuations indicate decline
IT IS fashionable to say that the city of Detroit is on the up after decades of decline. Amid the derelict buildings there are signs of revival; art shops and trendy food trucks abound. But for a truer augury of the city’s possible future, consider the rock-bottom stockmarket valuations of Ford and General Motors (GM), Motor City’s two big domestic car firms. (A third, Chrysler, is owned by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, whose chairman is a director of The Economist’s parent company.) If you put the members of the S&P 500 index in order of their price-earnings ratios, Ford and GM are at the bottom, among the walking dead.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “My car’s sexier than yours”
Business July 8th 2017
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- Food-delivery firms like Delivery Hero are thriving
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- Detroit’s car firms try to match Silicon Valley
From the July 8th 2017 edition
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