Ford in the Slow Lane

In the near term, Johnson is more optimistic than his peers on Wall Street. He's expecting Ford to post a loss of 35 cents a share, before one-time items, when the automaker reports its first-quarter results before Thursday's opening bell. On average, analysts project a loss of 60 cents a share, according to Thomson First Call.

Either way, Ford's results won't be pretty. The company already has reported that its first-quarter sales declined 13.2% from a year earlier. Its market share slipped 2.3 percentage points to 16.4%, reflecting continued gains by low-cost foreign-based producers.

"It's going to be a weak quarter," says Argus Research analyst Kevin Tynan. "Everybody knows that. They'll focus on the cost benefits of the employee buyouts and the restructuring moves."

As part of its turnaround plan, Ford is cutting 14,000 white-collar jobs in addition to the 38,000 hourly employees that accepted buyouts and early retirement packages. It also plans to close 16 manufacturing plants by 2012.

The savings that will result from these moves should start showing up in the company's operating results, but continued declines in sales of its most profitable vehicles may overshadow it.

Burnham Securities analyst David Healy notes that production of Ford's sport-utility vehicles -- the Explorer, the Mercury Mountaineer, the Expedition and the Lincoln Navigator -- has declined 54% since 2003, reflecting a sudden drop in popularity for the models.