Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Shipments Fall on Assembly Line Hiccup

Harley-Davidson shipped just 50,000 motorcycles in the third quarter. Its bottom line reflects the declining shipments; profit fell to 69 cents a share. That's 8 percent lower than a year ago, though it's better than expectations. Sales fell to $1.3 billion, but it was still better than estimates. Harley-Davidson said there were fewer production days in its plants in the third quarter but its customers didn't necessarily go away. CEO Keith Wandell believes Harley-Davidson is still on track for a strong year and expects to ship between 270,000 to 275,000 motorcycles to dealers worldwide in 2014. That would be an uptick from 2013, though only in the low single-digits. Earlier this year, Harley recalled several thousand motorcycles due to a potential ignition switch problem.