Harley-Davidson stock slides following C-suite shakeup

Yahoo Finance Live anchors Julie Hyman and Brad Smith break down the decline in stock for Harley-Davidson.

Video transcript

- Also here, we're tracking one motorcycle company that is very near and dear to many people's driveways, perhaps. Harley-Davidson slid following the announcement of a C-suite shakeup Chief Financial Officer Gina Goetter is going to step down at the end of April to pursue an opportunity outside of the company with toymaker Hasbro-- far different company there. But I guess--

- Toys of a different kind--

- Toys of a different kind, yeah.

- --I think you could say, right?

- More cost-efficient toys-- cost-effective-- cost-optimized.

- Yeah, I guess, quantity. Quantity there, perhaps, over the single bike in the driveway.

- Right.

- And it looks like David Viney, who's the treasurer, is going to be interim CEO once she leaves the company. But it looks like investors are not super pleased about this as we see a bit of a sell-off in the shares. The shares have not done well, by the way. They are down 28% since their near-term peak back in February. So it's interesting that this transition is now happening. It doesn't seem like it's anything, like, fundamental at the company. It sounds like she got another job. But, nonetheless, she'd only been there for a few years.

- Well, even the tone at Harley-Davidson had really been around what they're calling a transformational journey. If anyone listened into that earnings call, you probably would have gotten this vibe that, you know, they're still monitoring what the economic environment looks like. They're saying that continues to evolve, yet still optimistic on specific potential of Harley-Davidson's businesses. And it comes as they're looking across some of these strategic pillars. They defined six of them. I won't go into all of them.

But just think specifically around their Touring, their large Cruiser, and their Trike. Those are the segments that are most profitable, and they continue to really pound the pavement on that. And so expect to hear more about what are the most profitable parts of Harley-Davidson as well as where they still have the relationship with LiveWire-- of course, that spinoff that they were able to take public but still own the lion's share of at the end of the day and are able to benefit from how well LiveWire does. But, I mean, it's still an expensive product that they're putting on the market.

- Yeah, you know what? I just spotted some analyst commentary on HOG that I thought was quite interesting from UBS. The analyst over there is Robin Farley. And he's predicting that retail sales at US dealers of Harley-Davidson's could be down close to 20% for the first quarter. And he talks about-- that this is even after-- even with Harley offering fairly low financing costs for people who are wanting to buy the bikes.

UBS says March did have an easier comp versus last year but still doesn't look great. And the analyst there has a neutral rating on the stock. So that certainly can't be helping sentiment-- that kind of a prediction. Just checking to see when Harley is out with its full numbers. It looks like later in the month around April 27th is when it's due.

- All right. Much more about the-- about the HOGs on the road at that point in time.

- And whether we get confirmation of that lousy prediction-- we shall see.