motorcyclebloggers.com

One would think that this would be due to the silly, in my opinion, strike from this past February.  The article suggests otherwise, but I am not so sure.  While I have read that there is a slow down in the overall industry sales, HD has a special kind of sales slow down.  It was greatly assisted by the lack of building the damn bikes in the first place.

Although Harley-Davidson’s 2007 first-quarter sales report won’t be released until April 19, the company’s stock took a tumble in Monday trading on fears of a disappointing report.

Shares of Harley-Davidson closed Monday down 45 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $60.75 after UBS analyst Robin Farley said there are indications of weak sales for the company in January and February. Monday’s fall extends a slide of nearly 14 percent for Harley since the end of February.

Farley wrote that according to industry contacts Harley sales may be down 20 percent in January and 12 percent in February.

Farley said Monday the sales dip wasn’t a result of the plant worker strike last month, as dealers had adequate inventory. Instead, the figures are more worrisome because they could be evidence of an industry-wide slowdown, he said.

If dealers HD adequate inventory, then as a free market guy, the union folks did the company a favor and the management team probably thanks you for the forced inventory reduction.