Time to Buy Porsche Shares?

Porsche shares are looking very attractive to me: consistently good sales for vehicles, a succesful engineering consulting business to other car companies, and the US dollar is still high relative to the Euro.
Two problems:
1. The shares (POR3) are not traded in the US, tho my brokerage (Q&R) says they can get them. I wonder about liquidity, but since the London and Frankfurt exchanges are merging, that ought not to be a problem, I guess..
2. The shares currently trade at around $3500 per shares. The directors recently voted a 10:1 split that will both make the shares more reachable for small investors and probably increase the appeal.
3. I worry that the Cayenne will reach the market just in time for the SUV fad to fade away like the hula hoop.

What do others think?

I think 1990 or so would have been a good time.
Porsche has had quite a run up in the last 10 years, which I'm sure will be reflected in the stock price. It must be at an all time high.
Don't see many good things happening in the US and world economy in the next few years. Car sales in general have also begun a decline, as have SUV sales in general.
Stocks are always impossible to predict, but I think buying any automaker today at an all time high is risky.
(I wasn't aware that any of Porsche was publically traded).

[This message has been edited by Jim T (edited 03-05-2001).]

With SUV's getting all the bad press about being unsafe (ie rollovers) as well as a flatlining economy, I would expect Porsche's high end market to slow down in the car buying department, and the Cayenne to flounder.

However, I'm no market analyst.
Nick.

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Nick Shumaker
1982 911SC Coupe

1987/88 would have been a good time to buy Porsche. Net income went from DM 75 million in 1985/6 to DM 25 million in 1987/88; and in 1989/90 it was DM 68 million. I dont think the current malaise in the world car industry will affect Porsche that much; people with $60-150K to spend on a car are not usually affected by business cycles as much as us common folk.
I doubt that the Cayenne will be a flop. Look at the success of the BMW X5 (?) Vehicles like these are fashion statements more than anything else. My worry would be that fashions are changing. Look at how Audi is putting so much effort into high performance station wagons. My guess is that they will replace the luxury SUVs.

a 10:1 split would be great! ever since they became an AktiensGesellschaft back in the 1970s, the company has been on the up-and-up (except that REALLY dry spell between 1988 and 1996).

the Cayenne? don't forget the US is not the only country in the world. don't worry, they've got all those things sold. don't think the person that buys an Explorer will buy a Cayenne... shift your paradigm to the kind of person that bought a LM002 or a Hummer and then realized their mistake.

obin

I too thought they were on the tail end of the SUV fad. But what's next for the Soccer moms out there?

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Robert Stoll
83 SC
83 944