INTERNATIONAL SHARE PRICES

Market analysis with financial editor Roger Willis

Contact 01237 422660 or adsales@dealernews.co.uk

is set to be embedded at a high level for much of next year. In parallel, the Brussels-based European Commission predicted during mid-November that a steep drop in German economic output across the winter will help to drag the entire EU into recession.

It says output throughout the EU is shrinking during the current quarter and contraction won’t stop in the first three months of 2023 and possibly longer. The Germans will probably suffer worst in terms of falling industrial activity as energy costs surge, forcing factories to curb production and slashing domestic budgets. And they are in line for a full-year 0.6% GDP slump for the whole of 2023.

Europeans aren’t the only ones to be aware of their plight. As reported elsewhere in this issue, Honda’s motorcycle sales in Europe (including the UK) sank by more than a fifth – 40,000 fewer units – in the first half of its fiscal year to the end of September. The company reacted by cutting projected annual shipments through to March 2023 by 20,000.

Of course, energy costs are a major concern for the UK as well. The British population and industrial customers have been assailed by an inflationary onslaught of huge gas, oil and electricity price increases over the past few months – associated with our stand-off versus Russia over the war in Ukraine. But, fortuitously, we’ve been enjoying remarkably mild autumn weather. So caps on

further price leaps have held and the extortionate gas price has even dropped slightly.

However, should the temperature plunge to normal winter conditions, those caps won’t be worth spit and natural gas costs, in particular, for both household consumption and electricity generation, will go unfeasibly ballistic. Furthermore, outages from supply interruption would see the lights and heating turned off altogether.

Perhaps it might be wise to avoid committing all your candles to the Christmas tree this year, as well as begging Santa to fill his sack with thermal clothing and buying in a truck load of Yuletide logs. 

I can imagine a lot of people dusting off historic motorcycle qualifications on their driving licences and considering a return to cheap sets of two wheels

A snapshot of share performance across key manufacturers and markets

investors grew more circumspect about risk. Mumbai’s BSE Sensex stock index struggled to a modest 1.4% gain and four out of India’s five leading motorcycle manufacturers lost value. Hero MotoCorp, bucked this trend with news that it is now pouring enormous resources into playing catch-up on electrification.

CHINA – CHANGE OF TUNE

The Beijing government’s announcement that some reductions of zero-Covid lockdown severity would be introduced to boost flagging economic growth resulted in market indices recovery. Shanghai’s SSE Composite and the blue-chip CSI 300 eventually closed on slightly marginal respective 0.5% and 0.6% weekly gains. However, most listed motorcycle manufacturers were too slow to jump on this latest bandwagon. www.britishdealernews.co.uk

Price Week Month

USA (dollar) Harley-Davidson 48.24 +6.4% +34.4% Polaris Industries 116.62 +12.6% +21.8% Textron 70.88 +3.4% +18.4% Ideanomics (Energica) 0.26 -3.7% +23.8% Niu Technologies 3.22 +2.9% N/A LiveWire 6.55 -7.2% -12.0% Europe (euro) BMW 84.24 +5.6% +12.3% Volkswagen 190.50 +9.5% +17.0% Pierer Mobility 57.80 N/A +1.2% Piaggio Group 2.79 +6.9% +25.1% India (rupee) Hero MotoCorp 2668.50 +3.1% +5.2% Bajaj Auto 3727.65 -1.2% +4.4% TVS Motor 1107.45 -0.6% +2.7% Eicher Motors 3519.65 -4% +1.2% Mahindra 1287.10 -3.8% +4.6% Share performance as of 11 November 2022

Japan (yen) Honda Yamaha Suzuki Kawasaki Price Week Month

3335 -1.5% +1.7% 3465 +12.3% +18.1% 5184 +3.2% +9.8% 2861 +9.7% +21.5%

China (yuan) Qianjiang Zongshen Sundiro CETC (Jialing) Lifan 22.23 -3.7% +2.0% 6.43 -3.5% +3.3% 2.46 +2.1% -2.4% 14.30 -2.4% +8.1% 4.51 -2.4% -3.0%

Loncin

5.85 +8.1% +15.6% Linhai 9.25 +7.9% +13.4% Guangzhou Auto 12.06 -4.4% -5.3% CFMoto 139.00 -4.1% +1.3% Xinri E-Vehicle 21.29 -5.3% +3.8% China (HK dollar) Jianshe 5.09 -1.5% -1.0%