With auto loan growth collapsing...

And after admitting that "auto sales have reached a plateau,"- Below are some of the key comments from Ford executives describing the current conditions in the auto market:

"For the remainder of the year, we continue to see retail in the industry provide incentives still running at historically high levels, but down versus the record that we experienced in 2015.  Looking ahead to 2017, we continue to see industry sales are strong, but at a lower level than this year."

"Sales have reached a plateau."

"It's just that we're no longer in a period where we have a lot of pent-up demand coming out of the financial crisis. So that's why, I think we use the term plateau"

"Comparisons for the rest of the year are going to be really tough."

Ford has finally faced the music and taken an ax to its earnings guidance.

Ford sees 1Q adj. EPS 30c-35c, est. 47c, blaming higher costs, lower volume & unfavorable exchange rates.

Bob Shanks, our executive vice president and chief financial officer, will host a “Let’s Chat” forum at 10 a.m. EDT today to discuss key items of interest to the investment community. 

The presentation will note that we expect our total company adjusted pre-tax profit to be about $9 billion in 2017, which is lower than in 2016 driven by our planned investments in emerging opportunities, and to improve in 2018.   

We are establishing earnings per share guidance for the first quarter of 2017 in the range of $0.30 to $0.35 for both earnings per share (GAAP) and adjusted earnings per share (non-GAAP).

This is lower than our earnings per share in the first quarter of 2016 due to: higher costs (including commodities, warranty, and investments in emerging opportunities); lower volume (primarily fleet); and unfavorable exchange.

We continue to expect Ford Credit’s pre-tax profit to be about $1.5 billion in 2017 and to improve in 2018.

The result - shares plunge..

Erasing all post-election gains..