Michigan business news roundup: glum and glummer

This morning's stock chart for Michigan publicly-traded companies GM, Ford, DTE, CMS Energy and Dow Chemical (source: Google Finance)

Outlook for Michigan’s largest publicly-traded companies continues to be rocky as we start the business week. While petroleum continues to trend downward, the impact of a year of sky-rocketing fuel costs has taken its toll on stock prices and underlying business performance. Let’s take a near-term look at business news to see how the week may shape up:

General Motors (NYSE: GM) is still in fire sale mode, cutting costs as deeply as possible by nixing advertising on the Oscars program and chatting up potential buyers for the Hummer brand. Various reports include RusAl of Russia and Changfeng of China, and exclude Mahindra & Mahindra of India as potential suitors for Hummer’s hand. Moody’s, a credit rating service, had already downgraded GM to Caa1 from B3 rating earlier in the week, an acknowledgment that GM cannot raise cash fast enough to bring new, fuel-efficient cars to the market to sustain sales volume of 15 million cars a year.

Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) announced late Friday afternoon — too late to influence the market that day — that it was selling $500 million in stock in order to cover the debt obligations of its financing division, Ford Motor Credit LLC. This shifts the debt obligation inside the corporate “fenceline”, instead of leaving Ford exposed to the vagaries of the credit market at large. The announcement followed reports that Ford was adding to its lineup of “Flex” vehicles, now to include the new luxury Lincoln MKT model. Apparently the uber-wealthy who need to haul seven passengers and can still afford gas continue to demand spiffy high-end vehicles with crappy gas mileage. Which begs the question: why don’t they just buy a Hummer?

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) had a mixed week. The good news: its epoxy product for manufacturing wind turbine blades received certification from rating firm Germanischer Lloyd (GL). The bad news: Dow raised its prices on its latex products, in yet another move to recoup increased fuel costs.

CMS Energy Corporation (NYSE: CMS) and DTE Energy Company (NYSE: DTE) made little news this past week, in part because Michigan’s state legislature is not taking action on the disparity between its house and senate versions of the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards. If this means that Michigan is still trying to increase the renewable energy component required to something more than 7% of total energy production, as dictated by senate’s version, no news could be good news.