By Al Root
Ford Motor stock was having quite a day Wednesday but the reason is hard to suss out.
Shares of the Detroit auto maker were up 11% at $13.35, while the S&P 500 was up 0.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 0.5%.
Ford stock was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Other car stocks were moving, but not like Ford. General Motors shares were up 0.4%. Shares of Chrysler's parent, Stellantis, were up 2.7%. Tesla gained 3.9%.
President Donald Trump's summit with Chinese President Xi could be having an impact. Chinese cars have flooded Europe, creating some anxiety for U.S. car makers. Chinese imports to the U.S. are effectively blocked by tariffs. Any agreements announced would likely be designed to reduce the impact China's auto industry can have on the domestic industry.
The summit explanation is a stretch. Morgan Stanley wrote a positive note about Ford Energy on Tuesday evening, calling it an "Underappreciated driver of Model e path to profitability."
Model e is Ford's EV business. It lost $4.8 billion in 2025.
Ford announced "Ford Energy" earlier this week, a business that will deliver "United States-assembled battery energy storage systems for utilities, data centers, and large industrial and commercial customers in the United States."
The same lithium-ion batteries that power EVs can also be used to store energy from renewable power generation, which helps make solar and wind power-generating assets more reliable.
Tesla has a large energy storage business. It's deployed about 45 gigawatt hours of battery storage over the past 12 months. That's enough power to run several thousand American homes for a year. Ford plans to deploy "at least 20 gigawatt hours annually, with first customer deliveries planned for late 2027."
Batteries will come from Ford's Michigan battery plant that was built using licensed technology from China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., the world's largest maker of lithium-ion batteries.
"We believe that there is a fairly high likelihood that Ford signs an energy storage system supply agreement with large commercial customers, and potentially hyperscalers, over the next few months," wrote Morgan analyst Andrew Percoco.
He sees Ford Energy turning an operating profit by 2028 and generating almost $600 million in operating profit by 2030. That's good money for Ford. It's expected to earn about $9.5 billion in 2026 operating profit, according to FactSet.
Percoco rates Ford stock Hold and has a $14 price target for shares.
Support from Morgan Stanley is great. Still, Ford stock didn't move when the business was announced.
Maybe investors didn't realize the potential until Morgan Stanley put pen to paper. Maybe the market just does what it wants sometime.
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 13, 2026 12:24 ET (16:24 GMT)
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