Volvo Cars shares plunge 31% amid China, U.S. slump and fresh job cuts

BREAKING: Volvo Cars shares plunge 31% as the automaker warns of a deteriorating environment, citing tougher market conditions in China and the US, a near-50% drop in Chinese revenue, and 2,500 fresh job cuts.

Volvo Cars just lost a third of its value in a single morning.

Shares fell 31 percent after the Swedish automaker swung to an operating loss of 5.6 billion kronor, about 564 million dollars, from a 6.4 billion profit in the previous quarter. The headquarters in Gothenburg you can see here now has a harder problem than one bad quarter.

The damage is coming from both of its biggest markets at once. Revenue in China fell almost 50 percent year on year, as new Chinese rivals squeeze premium brands on price in what the company calls hypercompetition. In the United States, tariffs and fading electric car incentives are eating the margins.

The response is 2,500 job cuts worldwide, and 2,000 of those are in Sweden, part of a plan to strip out 5 billion kronor in costs. For a company that built its name on safety, the balance sheet is now the thing that needs protecting.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.