My personal opinion is they will downsize some... Less models of basically the same bike... Less dealerships, I believe they will pull through with a good thought out plan... Harley or their riders where not ready for an electric bike, especially one that cost 30,000 dollars... Just a poor business move that stands to cost them 10’S of millions of dollars... Should be interesting in seeing how the new Adventure bike and Bronx sport bike does for them.. I wish them nothing but the best... I personally would have put the money into their touring bikes, better suspension, more power and yes water cooling... And we really don’t need 3 different Road glides and 3 different street glides to choose from..And several different sportsters... Time for them to give us better bikes with less offering of them... I can’t see anyway it will continue to flourish if it keeps going down the same path it’s been going... Time for a big change to bring excitement back to the brand... New lighter frame would be a great start... More power less weight... Everyone but Harley seems to be doing that...

 

 

Mark Twain is alleged to have said; "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

I suspect Harley-Davidson might well be able to use this line as well.
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When considering this question I'm reminded of a philosophy class lecture years back in which the professor said that sometimes when questioning history we can make more sense of things by reframing the question. In this case the question isn't why Harley is on the decline, but instead why were they ever so successful in the first place. I believe their success was mostly accidental, or at least incidental, driven in large part by the mystique imparted by TV and movies of the 70s-90s in which almost all motorcycles were HD. Popular culture is a fickle thing, however, and they've moved on to vintage (looking at least) British and Italian bikes--seriously, pay attention to the bikes featured in movies/TV these days. I think politics played into this change as well, since we now have a cadre of American hating progressives controlling the narrative in Hollywood and media in general, so it makes sense they now eschew an American icon brand like Harley Davidson. In decades past these same bozos were drawn to a sort of blue collar, PBR drinking, idealized "working man" motif of simple yet pure values, and Harley Davidson played into that fantasy as well--however, they've since realized that bikers in general are pretty much the antithesis of the progressive nonsense that's permeated society and social media, and on the rare occasion you see an HD on the big screen these days it's not portrayed at all favorably. HD would have had to spend a fortune on marketing just to maintain the status quo and offset the lack of free publicity, and their attempts lately to set trends, or even capitalize on existing trends, are laughably inept--wide tires, denim paint, bobbers, blacked out trim, etc, etc, all brought to market 10-15 years after their popularity first ensued only served to show how embarrassingly behind the curve they are. HD certainly made hay while the sun was shining, and now that their popularity is on the wane I think they'll go back to more of a niche market of people who actually ride bikes instead of keeping them as a garage decoration/status symbol. Certainly a much smaller market, but hopefully one they can service successfully in the long term. Going forward I'll miss all the like new garage queens that can be had for pennies on the dollar versus new, but otherwise I'm fine with it.

 

Sounds like you should go into politics, a lot of words and nothing really said And as far as the blacked out look, everyone seems to want them over the old standard chrome, nice try though.

 

I think you are right about how Harley has changed the way it treats their customers. And when we say "Harley", we mean both the Corp Harley and the Dealer Harley. Harley Corp. forced the dealers to only think about the dollar rather than the customer when Corp made these dealers move to bigger stores and take out big loans to cover the buildings. This made the dealers HAVE TO care more about profit dollars than taking care of the customer. It's kind of reverse thinking. You'd think with those big loans they'd need the customer more, but it doesn't appear they think like that.

"Welcome to the largest casino in the world" is a good way of looking at any stock these days, or the stock market as a whole. Obviously a company's worth depends on making profits to sustain it's Corporate life. But nowadays, you have to try to look at the long term for that to yield a stock price that reflects that worth, and there are too many things long term that can change the company's situation. Heavy traders can push stocks up and down with just speculation that isn't backed up by financials at all. And as we see it now, their can be massive Govt forces intruding upon the Market that can shift it one way or the other. It's just darn hard to predict with any certainty how the Market will perform overall, much less how any single stock will do.

That picture of Jim Cramer sitting at his desk with banners reading Unemployment Records and Stock Market prices going higher says all you need to know about investing in today's stock market.

 

Personally I like the denim and blacked out look, when I had my 63' FLH for 45 years that I let go in 2016 she was black gloss paint and chrome, but these bikes now a days seem like so much more to clean and keep shine, am only 69 years young, but might be am tired of keeping all the polishing up, wish they would of kept the wide front tire on the Street Glide Special like on the Ultra Classic instead of the 19 tire, when I get the extra coins am gonna go for the wide tire kit for the front. To each their own.

 

Harley will be around for a long time. We look at the company from a consumer side. From a corporation side, it may be different. The current Market Cap is $2.9 billion. As the Market Cap declines, it makes it a likely buyout prospect. Over the decades, a lot of companies that were built on name recognition have been purchased by foreign entities. Manufacturing is moved to lower cost countries and products are introduced to take advantage of the brand name. I would not rule out a future where Harley is an Indian or Chinese owned company.

 

Q1 2020 Earnings;
EPS: expected 0.55, reported 0.51
Revenue: expected 1.04B, reported 1.10B

 

Harley just slashed the dividend to .02/share. Why in the world people would even come close to defending this as a good stock to own is beyond me. It sucked before the rona. It’s gonna suck after the rona. Cool bikes crappy stock. I hope all the defenders of the stock are putting up they money.