David Garrity Quotations

There are cases where the execution could be admittedly flawed. But, for a company as large as Ford, this is not to say that they won't eventually succeed.

We believe that Ford's recall of over 46,000 Explorer SUVs overseas since August 1999 undermines Ford's efforts to place responsibility on Bridgestone/Firestone in connection with the U.S. tire recall. As a result, Ford's credibility with U.S. consumers, legislators and regulators may suffer. We are thereby threatening the January 2001 launch of the new model.

Shares of companies like Apple and Motorola may have gotten ahead of themselves. But companies further down the supply chain are reasonably priced.

Free is very difficult to compete with. Certainly, life has become more interesting and challenging for the telecom companies.

I give Rick credit to try to move GM as an organization more at Internet speed. We're seeing the baton being passed from one person who made a significant contribution to someone on the same team, who is going to take the company hopefully to the next level.

What Microsoft has to do, arguably, is find way to recreate itself. And unfortunately this process of recreation, if you will, potentially carries the risk with it of cannibalizing Microsoft's existing product offering.

There is no compelling reason for a split since large institutional investors have the capital to buy shares regardless of the price.

Historically, Ford and Navistar have been the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the medium-duty truck business. This is just a consolidation of the industry.

It all boils down to when is this company going to show us better profit margins and cash flow margins? Investors are waiting patiently.

I would not be surprised to see sales in the second half of 1996 and sales in the first half of 1997 to be under pressure as a result of this finding.

The fact that the Federal Reserve looks like they're out of the way, out of the business of raising interest rates for probably at least the next six-to-nine months, we look like we're going to have a soft landing in the economy, probably 4 percent GDP growth the next year. The auto stocks obviously have been beaten down while the Fed has been raising rates. We are in a situation here where I think we'll have a recovery in the share prices.

To the extent the UAW wants to negotiate a contract that all manufacturers can live with, there is an outside chance for some accommodation to be reached.

Yet again Commerce One has snatched a piece of real estate from under the nose of Oracle. Oracle's performance in actually landing these (sites) has been, to date, underwhelming.

There are all sorts of questions - (from) what they're spending their money on, to what they're doing to reaccelerate sales growth, to what they're doing to try to optimize their capital investment. There's little visibility at the present time as to when these levels of spending are going to generate higher levels of return on investment.

Financially, their product line is reasonably successful. There would be no kind of distress sale as there was with Nissan and Renault. Honda can pick something in their own time and place.

These companies have been squeezing suppliers on prices for years.

The thing to look at here in terms of GM, given the magnitude of this product changeover, is to see how well the new company, in terms of those products, is doing. And there, we've seen a very strong surprise.

They are certainly demonstrating a hyper-sensitivity to what information they do disclose.

It will be affected as far as the quarter is concerned, but you have to look at full year.

It's not only the companies themselves that benefit from lower costs. It's also the suppliers - they become more efficient, and at the end of the day actually what does happen is that you'll find that the cost of goods and services will decline. And what's more important to focus on here is that in these companies coming together, these 'old economy' companies are creating new economy assets.

For a full-year basis we're looking at sales basically being flat this year versus where they were last year. But we're still staying at a fairly high rate.

They have put in place contingency plans for the year. They have sufficient inventories to not have it affect their market share.

In an environment where operating volumes are down and regulatory compliance is becoming more strict, it doesn't make sense for two companies to pool resources.

I have to give them credit. They are pioneers but are they leaders? And one might want to ask the question that isn't it true that pioneers die with arrows in their backs?

Investing in their business in order to put in place an infrastructure of the Amazon of tomorrow is becoming, increasingly, an expensive proposition. And it becomes painful, if you will, for investors to wait for that to happen.

In my view, shares of Ford would probably become more attractive if it got down to say $22, $23 a share. Although, I would argue that as long as these investigations are continuing, they'll probably serve to put a lid on the stock price performance. Other stocks in the auto sector we are more positive on include General Motors ( GM : Research , Estimates ). Also at GM, you've got a change in management -- you've got a significant outside shareholder developing in Carl Icahn, owning 30 percent in GM. There's just a lot of value to be realized in the group.

Certainly you can argue they have been successful on both fronts. And the demand for luxury sport utility vehicles is increasing.

I do think from a cultural standpoint that Microsoft is not yet quite thinking in the way that they need to competitively.

I don't think they are going to split. Management has indicated that while they are a public company, they would like to run themselves as if they were a private company and you could argue that's a similar path as Berkshire.