Here's the latest, published today...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Harley-Davidson Inc. shares skidded 12% Monday as analysts grew more skittish about motorcycle purchases in a downbeat economy.

Goldman Sachs chopped Harley's shares to sell, slashing its price target to $11, and whacking its 2009 profit outlook in half. RBC Capital Markets also took a more bearish stance, dropping its share-price target to $16 and cutting its profit outlook for this year.

Analysts at both brokerage houses used to have a price target of $30. Shares of the Milwaukee-based "hog" maker closed at $14.13.

Goldman analyst Patrick Archambault said he expects Harley's retail bike sales to fall by 30% this year, making it the worst year for new registrations since 1982.

In a research note, he said losses on stocks and real-estate investments will hurt the "higher-income demographic that accounts for a large part of the Harley-Davidson customer base."

Harley (HOG) is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings Jan. 23. At last check, analysts projected Harley's profit to drop 26% to 58 cents a share. Sales are pegged to fall 7% to $1.3 billion from the year-earlier period, according to a FactSet Research.

Recent executive departures -- one planned, another immediate -- aren't helping to boost the morale of Harley shareholders.

Chief Executive Officer James Ziemer said Dec. 15 that he plans to retire this year, capping a 40-year run with the company. On Thursday, Sy Naqvi quit as interim president of the motorcycle maker's finance unit, which helps consumers fund purchases of bikes.

Analysts had been flagging Harley-Davidson Financial Services as an area of concern. The unit is expected to make much less money, take on more delinquent loans, and be forced to find new sources of funding as the secondary market to sell its loans is dried up.

"Within several months, we think it's entirely possible that the company will have promising new leadership and lower expectations," wrote RBC analyst Edward Aaron. "In the interim, however, investors could have to take some pretty tough medicine, including meaningful production cuts, possible restructuring and maybe even a cut to the dividend."

Harley-Davidson just paid a quarterly dividend of 33 cents a share.

Shares are down 65% over the past year

 

I am waiting for it to get to 11 dollars a share.

 

Try etrade or ameritrade. They charge $10-$12 per trade regardless of number of shares up to 5,000 shares per trade.

 

That's exactly what I meant. $100 worth of Harley today would give you 7.7 shares.

A $12 charge on $100 is a 12% sales charge.

A $12 charge on 100 shares ($1413) is less than 1% sales charge.

 

He was talking about the HD Stock ticker/symbol HOG, not the HD Owners Group H.O.G

 

I bought a bunch at $12 about 6 weeks ago and sold it the other day for $16.

I'm wondering if they have a repossession meltdown coming, much like the housing market. They are used to selling a lot of bikes with little or no down and to people with questionable credit. They are also going to find it hard to fund loans to people with less than stellar credit going forward.

I wouldn't be buying any Harley stock yet.

$.02

 

I will be buying... and it won't take months for it to hit 10 (or even 9).

That being said, most of the sales are panic sales.... which were triggered after last weeks sell off (which was a result of all the dividend freaks cashing in (and then out). The price went up for a bit, while some of the institutional investors bought their annual allocation.

As far as the "sub-prime" loan theory for HOG... B$! they MAY have as much as 30% in subprime... which is higher than historical, but not outrageous. The real problem is that the credit market has dried up, so it is harder for them to SELL bikes... plus all the chicken littles running around screaming about the recession (there is one, and it could get MUCH worse, but I think it won't be real bad for those that planned on it).

There are 2 ways to make $$$ on Hog right now... buy on the dips and sell on the rebounds (but don't get greedy).... or...

WAIT for what you think the bottom is... then buy a bunch and be prepared to wait on it for 6 to 12 to 18 months to recover.... but the recovery SHOULD be 300 to 400%.

I am going to do BOTH.... my IRA wil buy long and hold..... and my "play money stock account' will ride the roller coaster.

 

Umm ... that ain't true.

You can buy stock all day long at 1 share each time, so long as you're willing to pay the broker's fee. Some place like Zecco is $4.50 per trade, so you'd need roughly $15 to buy 1 share of HD stock.

I just bought 5000 shares of one stock and 10 shares of another ... both trades were just $4.50 each. The 5000 shares were $.06 per share for a whopping $304.50 total price ($300 for the stock and $4.50 for the order) ... you can do the rest of the math.

As for HOG ... I've bought and sold HOG stock many times, depending on the market. In fact, I bought HOG back in mid-November for less than $12 and sold it for about 10 days later for a little more than $16/share. My 25 shares netted me almost $100 profit in that same period and all I did was wait for the stock to move up.

 

What's the stock symbol for Harley Davidson, and what market is it on?

 

It's HOG ironic isn't it.