Ford Up on Barclays Buy Rating Citing Electric Vehicle Strategy By Investing.com

Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Ford (NYSE:F) shares rose 3% in Friday’s trade after Barclays’s (NYSE:BCS) Brian Johnson called it a buy.

Johnson upgraded his rating on the carmaker to overweight from equal weight with a price target of $16.

Barclay’s target implies the stock could gain about 23% from the current level.

According to StreetInsider, Barclays believes Ford will announce a broader dedicated battery-powered electric vehicle strategy at its spring investor day. That date hasn’t been set yet.

Barclays views investor day as a “major catalyst” where Ford will “likely reaffirm it is abandoning its ‘flexible powertrain’ approach and highlight its BEV strategy centered around two dedicated BEV platforms: VW MEB and a new dedicated Ford platform, which it has discussed recently.”

StreetInsider, quoting the analyst, said they are more comfortable with the margin improvement outlook and a likely more aggressive shift towards battery-operated electric vehicles leveraging the Volkswagen (DE:VOWG_p)’s (OTC:VWAPY) modular electric drive platform.

They now believe that Ford can get close to its 6% EBIT margin goal for Europe, versus the consensus of about 1% to 2%.