How Ford's Credit Upgrade Helps Shareholders

This means that some of the excitement around Ford's reclaiming its symbol could eventually be duplicated at GM, but with a slightly different narrative about a company that was revived in bankruptcy court under the guidance of the Obama administration. Of course, unlike the Ford story, the GM story always seems to bring out the haters who cannot accept that government has a role to play in building a strong U.S. economy.

Also Wednesday, UBS analyst Colin Langan boosted his outlook for 2012 U.S. auto sales to 14.5 million units from 13.6 million units.

"Improving leading indicators, particularly the recent improvement in University of Michigan new car buying conditions, supports our more bullish outlook," Langan wrote. He noted, however, that fleet buying, warm weather, higher gas prices and inventory restocking pulled some demand forward, which could result in a lower sales cadence later in the year. Langan has buys on Ford and GM.

-- Written by Ted Reed in Charlotte, N.C.

>To contact the writer of this article, click here: Ted Reed

>To follow the writer on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/tedreednc.