Friday, April 11, 2008

Commentary on General Electric II (GE)

David Gaffen at the WSJ's MarketBeat blog is all over the GE action.
His first post was

Premarket: GE Miss Roils Markets
The only thing General Electric Co. is bringing to life this morning are sellers. After the industrial conglomerate missed expectations for the first quarter, the stock is down sharply, equity index futures are dropping, investors are fleeing the dollar, and risky credit is being avoided.

“A shocking miss – it’s really bad,” write analysts at Credit Suisse, who downgraded shares to neutral after the release. Other analysts weren’t shy either — Goldman Sachs also downgraded shares....MORE

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Analysts React: GE’s Miss

Wall Street analysts, at least in their research, tend to display a measured tone, but General Electric Co.’s surprising earnings miss has brought out a range of emotions in the researchers following the industrial behemoth.

Already, two firms have downgraded shares after GE reported earnings of 44 cents a share, seven cents short of the 51-cent consensus as reported by Thomson Financial. After all, in the previous eight quarters, the company met estimates to the penny seven of eight times, with the one deviation being a one-cent bettering of consensus....MUCH MORE