Despite the shortage of chips, good news about the four-wheeled world is circulating again. Index this morning Stoxx 600 Automobile & Parts it broke at 692,60, the record that had stood since 2015. The titles of the tire manufacturers are pulling the sprint: Continental +1,5%, Michelin +1,3%, Pirelli +0,6%.
Meanwhile, American dealers are sounding alarm signals in the face of constantly declining inventories against a sharply accelerating demand: for Ford alone, the lack of supply of chips has led to a production cut of 400 cars since January. The situation at GM is no different, which has diverted the chips available to trucks, the most profitable vehicles.
Good news also comes from Asia. At least for Daimler, the group that is making the most of the desire for luxury of Chinese customers. To meet Mercedes' request, the two Beijing plants controlled together with the Chinese Baic have increased their production capacity to the limit (45% more) with the aim of working 312 days a year to exceed the record of 611 pieces produced in one year: China is now the first market for the Stuttgart star.
In short, the auto industry, the cyclical sector par excellence, is preparing to ride the recovery, despite the difficulties related to the supply of chips, waiting to overcome the obstacles posed by the difficulties of logistics and the just in time production system now too dangerous in a phase of hunger for semiconductors.
Last week closed with an excellent +6.%, which extends the performance from the beginning of the year to +32%. the best together with that of the Banks. The global Stoxx index stops at +13%.
The best stock in the Automotive sector since the beginning of the year is Porsche, with a jump of 76%. They follow the group Volkswagen +58%, Daimler +44% and Stellantis +43%, which increased by 1,6% this morning.
In terms of fundamentals, the consensus collected by Bloomberg shows an average P/E of 26x with an average Dividend Yield of around 3%.
The European Automotive sector opens the week with an increase of 0,6% to 659,94 points and is attacking the historical highs dating back to 2015 marked at 666,74 points. The gap to fill is around one percentage point.
Finally, there is a small revenge of the traditional houses against Tesla. The house of Elon Musk, which this morning postponed the presentation of Model S Plaid + by at least six months, the model with a range of over 800 kilometers, has been marking time on the stock exchange for some time. AND the gap with Volkswagen is closing: Musk's house was worth six times the Wolfsburg group despite only half a million cars sold against ten million. But the gap in five months has narrowed to 1 to 4 (550 billion dollars against 140 billion euros).
