To me its never good in the long term to see this.



http://www.marketwatch.com/story/har...7-21-124853048

 

I was going to dump my shares after they released the new Road Glide and it spiked. Like an idiot I held onto it.
Like it or not Polaris is dipping into their market share....

 

The market for HD and any other company will ebb and flow. Look at Apple. Give it time and it will rebound.

 

When the Rushmores came out, I thought they were too radical, and wouldn't sell well. But they did. The final quarter of 2013 is when the Rushmore frenzy hit. So part of the decline may be they are running out of people who like new designs. I think they should have kept the traditional FLHTCU and FLHTC, for traditionalists.
I also think a lot of people rushed into motorcycling when gas prices jumped up, and they dropped out.

 

I also think the surge in sales was also people who couldn't really afford the payment long term...either they lost their jobs or ran up other bills and had more out-go than income or something like that. This is similar to what happened in the housing market. That would explain why there are so many used bikes flooding the market, making the new bike market slow to a crawl.

 

Their definition of a "heavy" motorcycle is ridiculous. Of course the sales placed in that absurdly broad category will fluctuate wildly. Honda came out with the NC700 which took off pretty well. It's certainly not a comparable bike. But if one is just talking gross numbers, the guy who decided to start off easy and buy the Honda will be counted against the Harley numbers even if he never would have bought the Harley (or Goldwing, or Victory, or Indian) in the first place. How about the plethora of 650 cc enduros that are so popular? A sales spike on those will count against Harley too.

There really is no comparable manufacturer out there. Most make a wide variety of products so their stock performance is not analogous. Polaris included.

 

if they want to sell more bikes they should try backing off the price a bit. quality and price needs a good looking at.

 

After seeing the various HD cycles at the local dealership this past week, and reviewing the latest catalog, I asked myself who the heck wants all those large and gaudy models at ridiculous prices. The trend in automobiles has been to downsize in the last 20 years, but HD seems to be going in the opposite direction. Maybe large bikes at large prices are HD's bread and butter, I just don't relate to them or that business model. The catalog had "high-paid corporate advertising" all through it, with heavy emphasis on CVO models. The font was so small I could barely read it. My hunch is that HD MC is top-management heavy, with way too many and over-paid executives. That alone can bring a company to ruin; too many chiefs and not enough Indians, no pun intended. I also didn't relate to the motorclothes and jackets, all over-priced and quite frankly, not appealing.

On the bright side I did spot a couple of Softtail Slims, one Low Rider, and some neat Sportster models on the showroom floor, all of which fed my motorcycle mania. There weren't very many of these, however. At the end of my day, I sure was glad I have my CrossBones, still one of the neatest bikes HD has made in the 21st century.

 

Actually the reverse is true regarding your car industry analogy. Take a Honda Civic for example - the 1st ones were about the size of the original Mini Cooper. Now they are bigger and more loaded than the earlier generations of Accords. And speaking of Minis - bigger every year. My Tacoma is about as big as the earliest Tundra/T100s.

As far as technology - try to buy a car without power windows or AC. Bluetooth is pretty much standard as well.

You are clearly not the demographic Harley wants input from. This said with absolutely no insult intended. You love your Cross Bones. It was a failure and Harley takes note of such things. Why would they build anything like that again? My Bad Boy (perhaps the father of your Cross Bones) was a stunning failure as well. As was the XLCR. Note that the last two are collector items now, so hang on to that Cross Bones, which I like as well btw.

As mentioned, there is an ebb and flow to stocks in general. The Moco is a manufacturer of a product sold on emotion - not need. It will have bigger swings than someone who sells bread. And as earlier stated, the category (heavy motorcycles) as it is defined, is flawed.

 

I'm thinking people that have bought new bikes in the last few years feel they have enough invested in this hobby and don't feel the need to keep buying the same old thing, at a new and improved price. That plus the fact they keep making models that don't sell good, like the V-rod line. Hard to sell new, and harder to sell used. Maybe the public's infatuation with motorcycles has started to die down. You wouldn't think so by the attendance at the big rallies. And by the fact a good % of people don't really ride their bikes enough to wear them out, and having the need to buy another like they do with cars. Younger potential riders may think they want a recreational vehicle that the whole family will get some use from, like a boat or RV. I didn't get why they reported about Honda's chopper model had it's price reduced to less then 10k. Usually when the metric bike makers have a hard time selling a model, they just drop it from the lineup. Problem solved. They don't keep making it hoping one day everyone will wake up and want one. I'm sure Harley keeps a close eye on which models sell, but being the V-Rod was Wille G's baby, they don't drop it out of loyalty or respect for him.,,,