Harley Davidson "retail sales have fallen sharply during August"

Another sign that maybe the housing slump isnt´t contained. You better don´t show them the view from the just released Beige Book. Will this perma spinning from officials ever stop ? They are making things only worse. No wonder gold is acting....

Die Einschläge das in den USA etwas aus dem Ruder läuft kommn näher. Es ist wohl keine gute Idee den Leuten von Harley die letzten Aussagen der Fed vom Beige Book zu zeigen. Das permanente schönreden ist wirklich nur noch peinlich. Im Endeffekt wird durch das "Perma Spinning" alles nur noch verschlimmert. Kein Wunder das Gold in Bewegung kommt.....

On top of the slump in sales Harley faces another problem with its financial division.

Zudem hat Harley wie wohl etliche andere noch erhebliche Probleme in Ihrem Finanzierungsarm

Kass: Harley Hogs Feed at the Subprime Trough

In 2006-07, 28% of HDFS loans in its securitized pools had FICO scores below 650, which is considered subprime, which is very close to the 21% subprime market share of total mortgage loans made the previous year.

During the company's investor day on Feb. 28, Harley acknowledged that several of the securitization pools had breached their credit-quality metrics -- like subprime, the most recent pools' credit losses and delinquencies are rising faster than expected and more rapidly than earlier pools.

Harley-Davidson announced today that it expects to ship between 86,000 and 88,000 Harley-Davidson® motorcycles in the third quarter of 2007. Shipments of between 91,000 units and 95,000 units were originally planned for the quarter

"Initial reports about our 2008 model year motorcycles from our dealers and the media have been excellent, but this is a difficult time for the U.S. consumer," said Jim Ziemer, Chief Executive Officer of Harley-Davidson, Inc. "Coming off a negative U.S. retail sales trend in the first six months of the year, we ran an effective promotion in July that increased retail sales and reduced inventories of 2007 model motorcycles. However, our U.S. dealers' retail sales have fallen sharply during August.

> Even if you assume that the "promotion" in July has eaten some August sales the wording is pretty clear. And it shows that they were able to sale prior to August only if they have offered big discounts.

> Selbst wenn man einwenden kann das die "Verkaufsoffensive" im Juli wohl einige geplante Augustkäufe vorweggenommen hat zeigt es doch auch deutlich das ohne größere Rabatte offensichtlich nicht mehr viel abzusetzen ist......

Looking ahead to 2008, the Company anticipates the U.S. retail motorcycle environment will continue to be challenging