As the S&P 500 achieved its 33rd record high of 2025 on Friday, I was reviewing the list of stocks hitting 52-week highs. Two names stood out — General Motors and Ford. With all the discussion around a sluggish labor market and the impact from tariffs, it struck me as notable that two carmakers, companies susceptible to economic fluctuations, were both breaking out. In GM’s case, it was an all-time high.
Initially, I wanted to test what it meant for the broader market when both GM and Ford were breaking out at the same time. However, because of GM’s 2009 reorganization, price data is limited. So, I shifted my focus to Ford, which has now recorded a 52-week high on six separate occasions in the past month.
While today’s U.S. economy looks very different from the manufacturing-driven one of decades past, it still feels helpful to ask whether Ford’s persistent breakouts have tended to coincide with broader market strength.
Across all timeframes, both the mean and median returns exceeded their respective study-period averages. Moreover, in nearly every case, the win rate was higher. The above-average results indicate that when Ford experienced a cluster of 52-week highs in the past month, it tended to align with favorable conditions for the S&P 500.
Except for the most recent occurrence in November 2021, no other instances coincided with a significant market peak. Notably, several clusters emerged during the tech-driven bull market of the 1990s.
If we isolate the first instance after Ford reached a one-year low, similar to the current setup, the S&P 500 advanced over the following year in every case. Most of those occurrences came after bear markets tied to recessions, making 1996 and 2013 the most relevant historical analogs.
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