Ford Faces a Hard Climb

Ford (F - commentary - Cramer's Take) is going to be going up against some serious competition from two union-run, American-backed companies, and it's beginning to feel, to me, like Boeing (BA - commentary - Cramer's Take) vs. Airbus, except that Ford doesn't have Boeing's bulletproof balance sheet. That makes me want to take the meager profit and run.

You see that the Ford deal today, for all of the hoopla, for all of the size, is a reminder that the common stock is just fodder for a company that has long since realized that the common stock doesn't own the company, the bondholders do.

Which is the real problem here, because Ford is run by the bondholders and General Motors (GM - commentary - Cramer's Take) is going to be run by the UAW and the government, and Chrysler is a subsidized U.S. company with Fiat in the passenger seat and the unions in the driver's seat. Given the incredible pro-union bias of this administration, it seems it will do everything it can to make these two deadbeats work, because they are, in the end, like Airbus, employment projects.

To me that says that if you buy this stock, you assume the risk of being part of the next big wipeout if the retail sales turn around. I can't think of a worse day for this deal to occur ... not that there was ever a good time,

I turned positive on Ford a while ago, when it was lower, but it wasn't Ford common. It was the preferred, which has gone up much more than the common.

The common, in the end, is and has been the whipping boy. Just not a good place to be.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in stocks mentioned.

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Know What You Own: Other auto stocks include Toyota Motor (TM - commentary - Cramer's Take), Honda Motor (HMC - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Daimler (DAI - commentary - Cramer's Take).

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