LONDON—The world's largest tire makers will be under pressure from investors in 2019 to reverse a slide that has seen share prices decline by about 20-30 percent since the start of last year.
Goodyear suffered the biggest dip in its share price, down 36.6 percent on the NASDAQ in the 12 months to Jan. 7—though the rate of decline seems to have eased in the final two months of 2018.
This is not quite the case for Michelin's share price, which has continued to steadily lose ground since the company downgraded its full-year financial forecasts in August.
The French group has, therefore, a big particularly big task on its hands to arrest a fall of almost a third in its share price since early 2018.
Likewise, Pirelli and Nokian both posted year-on-year falls of around 28 percent in the value of their share prices, as of early January.
While Japanese majors Bridgestone and Sumitomo Rubber have fared better than their western rivals, their share prices still started 2019 about 21 percent lower than a year ago.
As well as uncertainty in world financial markets, the declines seem to reflect global economic slowdown, particularly in China; increasing competition from lower-cost tire manufacturers; and recent rises in crude-oil related costs.
These factors have clouded out the potential contribution to earnings of investments in new technology, increasing regulatory requirements and solid long-term global tire-market fundamentals.