Third quarter profit by the BMW group were lower than average expectations, and shares were subsequently sold sharply on Tuesday, closing 3.44% lower at 43.40 Euro.

Reasons were cited as the continuously strong Euro, higher resource costs and losses in interest and currency derivatives.

For the first 9 months, BMW earned only 2.7 billion euros, but stressed that the 2007 pretax profit target of 3.75 billion euros will be accomplished.

Total earnings in the most important automobile division rose from 11.088 to 13.107 billion euros, which was 700 million euros above expectation.

The world's largest premium carmaker plans to sell 400,000 cars in the fourth quarter, helped by new models like the X5 and MINI. But investors seem not to be convinced by the long term strategy that was recently presented by Chief Executive Reithofer.

Goals were set to reach a profit margin of 8-10 percent by 2012 - much slower than rivals in the premium segment like the Daimler AG or Porsche. In the past quarter, the margin was only 5.55 percent, as the operating profit rose by 6 percent to 765 million euros, which was below the expected 911.3 million euros.