A: Ford Motor may be getting positive buzz with the new Sync voice-activated communications and entertainment systems it's putting into some of its cars. But the stock is certainly out of sync.

Shares of the Detroit-based automaker have been nothing short of a head-on collision for investors and employees who own the stock. The company continues to struggle to restructure itself in a highly competitive auto market. The company, which is 40% controlled by the Ford family, sold off its Hertz car rental company and parted with a piece of the Aston Martin business. The company recently said it would sell Jaguar and Land Rover to India's Tata Motors (pronounced TAH-tah). And the company announced more employee buyouts.

If this doesn't paint the picture, take a look at the bottom line. Ford has lost money the two past years: $2.7 billion in 2007 and $12.6 billion in 2006. Not pretty.

So, what do you do if you own the stock? First, a general piece of advice for employees of public companies: It's OK to own your company's stock, but keep it to a smallish piece of your portfolio. How much is up to you, but you absolutely shouldn't hold more than 10% in any one company stock and probably should have much less than that in stock of the company you work for. There's just no reason to expose yourself to so much company-specific risk.

Now, let's take it further. Does Ford belong in your portfolio at all? To find out, we'll put the stock through the four steps we look for at Ask Matt:

Step 1: Risk vs. reward. When you take a risk on a stock, you want to make sure you're properly rewarded. Downloading Ford's trading history back to 1977, we see the company generated an average annual compound rate of return of 8.5%. That is a pretty low return if you consider the Standard & Poor's 500 has returned more than 10% annually over the long term.

To get that relatively low return, you accepted considerable risk — standard deviation — of 40 percentage points. That's 108% greater than the S&P 500's long-term risk. That's tremendous risk, especially considering your sub-par return.

Step 2:  Measure the stock's discounted cash flow. Some investors decide if a stock is pricey by comparing its current price to the present value of its expected cash flows. It's a complicated analysis made simple with a system from NewConstructs. When we run Ford's stock, we find it's rated "neutral." In other words, the current stock price is roughly equal to what the company is expected to generate in cash over it's lifetime. Using this analysis, it would appear Ford's stock is priced at fair value: not cheap, but not expensive.

Step 3:  Compare the stock's current valuation to its historical range. BetterInvesting's Stock Selection Guide can help. If the analysts are right, and the company grows 9.5% a year the next five years, that would put the stock in the "sell" range. That's a flashing red light for investors who believe the price-to-earnings ratio will return to historical norms.

Step 4:  Check the company's financial health. Before investing in any company, you want to make sure it's in good financial shape. A quick way to check is to look at where it falls on the USA TODAY Stock Meter, which ranks stocks from conservative (1) to aggressive (5). Ford scores 4.3 here — scary for a big, old industrial company. You can get a Stock Meter score for almost any stock by going to money.usatoday.com and putting the stock's ticker symbol or company name into the Get a Quote box.

The bottom line? Ford doesn't fare too well on any of the things we look for. That's a good reason to make sure you' don't own too much of this stock. I understand you probably have a sense of loyalty to your former employer. But don't fall in love with any stock. This is a caution: You could probably find much better investments for your money.

Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY and author of Investing Online for Dummies. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Click here to see previous Ask Matt columns.

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