At $100 billion valuation, Ford races past General Motors

Robert Besser
15 Jan 2022, 23:37 GMT+10

The market value of Ford Motor Company has reached over $100 billion for the first time, as more investors are investing in its electric vehicle strategy
After earlier reaching a more than two-decade high, the company's shares, which more than doubled in value last year, rose 3.7 percent in afternoon trading
Ford is now worth more than rival General Motors, and electric vehicle start-up Rivian Automotive, but they are all still dwarfed by EV leader Tesla

DETROIT, Michigan: The market value of Ford Motor Company has reached over $100 billion for the first time, as more investors are investing in its electric vehicle strategy.

After earlier reaching a more than two-decade high, the company's shares, which more than doubled in value last year, rose 3.7 percent in afternoon trading.

Ford is now worth more than rival General Motors, whose market cap stands at about $88.61 billion, and electric vehicle start-up Rivian Automotive, whose value is about $77.8 billion, but they are all still dwarfed by EV leader Tesla, which has a market cap of over $1 trillion.

Amidst its gains and as part of Chief Executive Jim Farley's aggressive electrification strategy, Ford plans to double its production capacity for the EV version of its popular F-150 pickup truck to 150,000 vehicles.

It has also had to stop taking reservations for the F-150 Lightning electric pickup ahead of its arrival at U.S. dealers in spring 2022.

After taking over as CEO in 2020, Farley pledged to invest more than $30 billion in electric vehicles, including in battery development, by 2030.

Ford's EV strategy has encouraged Wall Street brokerages, with Deutsche Bank being the latest to raise its price target on the company.

While raising Ford's price target to $24 from $18, Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner said, in a research note, "We see room for Ford's fourth quarter performance to come in above consensus expectations, based on continued strong pricing offsetting growing raw materials headwinds."

Ford's median Wall Street price target is $21.85.