Ford posted its strongest stock rise in 6 years. Morgan Stanley saw a new catalyst

Quotes of the American auto giant Ford Motor Company on Wednesday, May 13, jumped by more than 13%, showing the maximum growth in six years. Everything happened after Morgan Stanley analyst voiced an optimistic forecast: according to his assessment, the new energy division of the automaker may in the coming months to sign contracts with major commercial customers, including hyperscalers, Bloomberg reports.

Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco predicted that "there's a fairly high probability that Ford will enter into energy storage supply agreements with large commercial customers and possibly hyperscalers in the next few months," Bloomberg wrote. And the partnership already in place with China's Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) could be a positive catalyst that the market is underestimating, the analyst believes.

Ford Energy division, the creation of which the automaker announced in January 2026, may be worth about $10 billion, the investment bank believes. At the same time, if the company successfully expands production capacity and builds a stable portfolio of orders, then in the future this direction may approach the valuation of Tesla's energy business, Percoco admitted. The cost of the latter is $140 billion, Morgan Stanley wrote in February.

Ford will invest $1.5 billion this year in the energy storage systems business, seeing it as a "high-margin growth opportunity," Bloomberg quoted Chief Financial Officer Sherry House as saying. The company will convert a battery plant in Kentucky to produce large storage cells for data centers and utility companies, while part of a new facility in Michigan will produce smaller storage systems for the consumer market, according to Ford's website. The automaker's CEO Jim Farley previously called the energy business a "key element" of the company's strategy to increase operating margins from 3.6 percent in 2025 to 8 percent by 2029, the agency recalled.

Developing the energy business could be a "successful pivot to a higher margin business" for Ford, confirms Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Steve Maine.

Ford's papers rose in price on May 13 by 13.2% - the maximum jump since March 2020, Bloomberg calculated. As a result, they came out in the plus since the beginning of 2026: the company's capitalization increased by 3.4% during this time.

Investors on the options market bet mainly on further growth of quotations: the demand for options to buy shares was five times higher than for options to fall, CNBC points out. One of the large traders bought 7000 options with the expectation that by January Ford shares will rise by more than 25%, the channel reports.

Wall Street analysts are much less optimistic: after the May 14 rally, their average target price is already behind Ford's current quote. It is $13.55. 16 out of 24 analysts take a wait-and-see stance on the auto giant's shares, advising neither to buy them nor to sell them. Six of them are bullish, and two of them recommend reducing their stake in the company.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor