Deutsche Bank Raising Estimates On Ford (F)

Deutsche Bank is raising its estimates on Ford F. It has a $20 price target on shares. In a note to clients, Deutsche Bank writes, "We are raising our 2011 and 2012 EPS estimates for Ford to $1.65 and $1.90 from $1.56 and $1.83. And we are revising our target price to $20 from $19.50. We continue to believe that Ford is poised to gain market share and further improve pricing. One year ago, TRUECar.com estimated that Ford would gain roughly 17% of Toyota's market share losses; This year, there are reasons to believe that Ford's market share gains could be larger (Japanese Automakers are collectively impacted, and Ford has recently launched several very competitive products). Ford's pricing has already been running $700-$800 higher on a yoy basis; well above the assumptions ($250/vehicle) built into our models. For certain vehicle segments (small cars and SUV's), we believe that Ford is already constrained by capacity, reinforcing our view that pricing could move higher. A $500 improvement in pricing vs. our assumption could add $1.3 bn to our pretax earnings and cash flow estimates, which are already $1 bn above consensus for this year (our EPS estimates are close to consensus due to our assumption of a higher GAAP (non-cash) tax rate)." Shares of F are up 11 cents in pre-market trading to $15.90, a gain of 0.7%.