What's he saying? I went thru this in 1985 watching them. Had a customer at the time who ran the printing division. At the time, GE had all in house divisions, like some little town. I can't remember the CEO, but they got rid of all those little shops, gave them away, actually. Told the guy, "it's yours". You can even bid on the printing. " One guy, we were looking at his house, bragged he could disappear in the bathroom and read for hours at a time. They walked in, called ten people together, fired five, told the other five to pick up the slack. And in that area it was always "he's a big shot at GE", or "he's got a good job at GE". There never was a good job at GE, or anywhere, and people are learning. Imagine working there for 30 years, buying stock, and it's 7, looking at 5, or 3........... terrible.
What amazes me is how they could be in such a situation. Now what if they survive? Will they be a better company? They have a nice patent portfolio, nice R&D and infrastructure business etc.. and I figured the financial side is an asset they are more old school compared to the newer financial houses but distressed today due to ravaging deflation and frozen markets. GE is trading now as if it was losing money, and common about to be wiped out. If they survive and common still good it would be interesting to see what happens. Now I know a huge portion of shareholders are not institutions I wonder if the dividend cut pretty much sealed the fate for those who expected to live off the dividends and what we are seeing is major dumping by individuals + dumping of GE holdings when the index funds etc. get liquidated. I am long GE (I bought at 2400 shares 15 unfortunately but never expected this) Oh will its only money I have one GE share certificate at home framed and hanging with other share certificates of different companies. Also my loss with GE is a lesson I am now learning options and did write calls and go long puts so if anything I am learning from this. Maybe GE will learn from this situation and grow stronger in the longrun.
Whats amazing is that ge is a great industrial company.Probably the best in the world at making quality major infrastructure components.They build nuke plants,aircraft engines,satellites,military stuff etc... They are America. Despite all this it only takes a little diversion in to derivatives/finance to jeopardize the whole damn ship. Getting away from building tangible assets and into synthetic,invisible,intangible products has cost them. I think this also reminds me that no matter how great your earnings and sales are,if your losses are greater,you are insolvent. Considering how massive GE earnings are and the products they sell,it seems their foray into financial games is much bigger.Their assets and 100yr history,reputation are being overshadowed by their liablities from this recent stupid gamble into financial synthetic products.This underscores how insane this whole ponzi scheme has been. GE is in big trouble.How do they get rid of their liabilities?Will they be solvent?
I'm an engineering major almost done with college right now. I remember about two years ago going to a career opportunity meeting where GE was presenting about their job opportunities. They were outlining their different divisions, what they did, and approximately what percentage of their business it made up. When they got to their "GE Money" division the smug finance guy made sure to point out that "GE Money is actually GE's biggest money maker believe it or not". Now look at em... .... bunch of fucking ass clowns. In general, finance has to breed the most simple-minded "yes-men" out of all the majors that have any respect attached to them.
If you are looking 10-15-20 years down the road and are *not* concerned with near-term fluctuations, I think GE is a raging "buy" at these levels.
GE are definitely clamping down on their finance division. GE Money offers financing for business' who wish to offer finance to their customers(a good thing) but not in this environment. they also have alot of retail store accounts. that said,how bout dumping NBC ? I personally think GE will survive and become a stronger company.they had to cut their dividend . gonna be interesting how GE plays out.
I remember Peter Schiff screaming years ago on the radio he wouldnt trust GE with a penny of his money as they are this one giant Hedge fund about to blow up. If he knew, and all the nerdy Schiff listeners knew certainly the Fed and GE itself must have known, no?
Obviously I am a little late to the party here, with the stock down so much in the last 3 days / 1 month / 2 months, but GE CDS is at 20% (!) This is Washington Mutual type ugliness. And the company has a market cap of 74 billion! Even though it has fallen in half since mid-January, to me a company with CDS at 20% should have a market cap much much lower than 74 billion. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN0453394420090304?rpc=44 NEW YORK, March 4 (Reuters) - The cost of protecting General Electric Capital Corp's debt against default rose to a record high on Wednesday, a day after shares of its parent GE (GE.N) touched a fresh 16-year low. Five-year credit default swaps on GE Capital rose to 20 percent upfront, plus 500 basis points annually, meaning investors would have to pay $2.0 million in an upfront payment, plus $500,000 a year to insure $10 million of debt, according to data from Phoenix Partners Group. The swaps had closed on Tuesday at 14 percent upfront plus 500 basis points annually. (Reporting by Dena Aubin, Editing by Walker Simon) (dena.aubin@thomsonreuters.com; +1-646-223-6325; Reuters Messaging: dena.aubin.reuters.com@reuters.net)) ******** update: I got a little bit excited. The CDS refers to GE unit "General Electric Capital Corp". However to paraphrase a different article that I read, they should do a capital raising now while they can, before they have to.
stock_turd3r said that GE is going to $3 I don't know about you...but I'm buying with both hands at $7 (long term accounts; in my opinion the best opportunity of my lifetime)