What happened
Another day, another rally for Harley-Davidson (HOG -2.24%), which is up almost 10% heading into midday trading on Tuesday.
So what
The motorcycle king's stock has been surging since mid-May, gaining over 40% in two weeks' time on little to no news, other than that it would restart limited bike production and ship fewer new models to dealers.
The LiveWire electric motorcycle remains part of Harley-Davidson's future. Image source: Harley-Davidson.
Now what
A lot of the optimism exhibited in Harley-Davidson's rising stock seems grounded in its having been beaten down too far. While sales are falling and its turnaround plan is yet to be defined, Harley still sells hundreds of thousands of motorcycles globally every year and makes a decent profit on them. Its business may be diminished, but it's not going out of business.
There's also hope that new CEO Jochen Zeitz's leadership can reap greater benefits. Again, there are no details yet, but Harley has implied that it will focus on its more profitable models and not abandon its core U.S. market, as previous CEO Matt Levatich proposed.
Such a change still has its detractors, as it will essentially double down on the business that has been causing sales to decline, but possibly by restoring an air of exclusivity to the iconic motorcycle it may enhance demand.
Yet stock price moves based on such ephemeral wishes may lead to greater disappointment.
