Is GM a buy?

[Dragon]

http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/16/markets/sp...dex.htm?cnn=yes

The stock's yielding 8.9% and GMAC bonds sport a handsome 9.2% yield. Have the stomach for it?
December 16, 2005: 1:04 PM EST
By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - This year will probably be remembered as the one when the wheels fell off of General Motors Corp.

The world's largest automaker has been battered by all kinds of bad news -- it's lost $3.8 billion through September, its sales and market share are sinking and rating agencies cut its debt to "junk" bond status. This week analysts at credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's said that chances of a bankruptcy at the automaker were "not far fetched."

GM (Research) has had to resort to large incentives to sell its cars, such as offering them to the public at employee-discount levels. Its stock has tumbled more than 40 percent this year, easily the worst performance of any stock in the Dow industrials.

So it would appear to be a curious time to ask whether GM's stock or bonds are a buy. But the prices of both have sunk enough to make the question worth exploring.

The reason GM's securities have tumbled? Investors are factoring in a significant threat of a bankruptcy filing into the value of GM's stock and bonds. But GM has insisted that there will not be a bankruptcy filing and that planned job cuts and plant closings will help stem its losses.

If the company does climb back into the black, there would likely be a nice rebound for GM's stock and bonds. But how likely is a return to profitability in the near future?

The stock has few fans
If you're extremely adventurous, the stock could be worth a look at these levels. In fact, four analysts actually rate GM a "buy." But six analysts rate GM a "hold" and seven have an outright "sell" call on the stock. For many, the bankruptcy risks are just too high.

Banc of America Securities auto analyst Ron Tadross estimates the chance of of GM filing for bankruptcy protection from creditors over the next two years is about 40 percent and that an eventual filing is "inevitable."

Many analysts also question whether GM's cash on hand -- $19.2 billion at the end of the third quarter -- is as strong as it appears at first glance. The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into GM's accounting practices, including its relationships with suppliers.

The company also faces risks from the bankruptcy of auto parts supplier Delphi, a spin-off of GM that is still GM's largest supplier. Delphi is demanding steep pay cuts from its union members and due to contractual obligations, GM may be forced to help buy out some employees at its former unit. GM has said it could be on the hook for as much as $12 billion due to the problems at Delphi.

A strike at Delphi is possible as well and Robert Hinchliffe, an auto analyst with UBS Securities, estimates that GM would burn through $1 billion to $1.5 billion a week if its own North American operations are shut down by a strike at its key supplier.

Another analyst said that even if GM does avoid bankruptcy, the stock is still only for the most daring of investors.

"I don't buy the bankruptcy talk. I think they have the resources to get through this," said David Healy, analyst with Burnham Securities. "The stock has gotten so banged up, it could be an interesting speculation play. But I'm not going to try it myself."

Is GMAC a good play?
While GM's core automotive operations struggle, GMAC, its finance unit, has been going strong. The unit is on course to deliver record profits in the neighborhood of $3 billion this year thanks to growth beyond auto finance.

GMAC's mortgage business produced more than half of the division's income the first three quarters of the year, and GMAC's insurance business posted gains even after factoring in a hit due to Hurricane Katrina in the third quarter. With that in mind, some say that GMAC bonds may be the only worthwhile investment in GM these days.

Most of GM's debt outside of its GMAC finance unit is longer-term, and it is generally trading at a steep discount – between 65 to 67 cents on the dollar for bonds that mature in 2016, based on prices late this week. But since GMAC is by far the most profitable unit of GM, its bonds are trading at far less of a discount – 90 or 91 cents on the dollar for bonds maturing in 2014.

The main reason GMAC's debt trades at a premium to its parent's bonds is GM has announced plans to sell a majority stake in GMAC so the finance operation can regain an investment grade rating on its debt. Without that improved rating, GMAC's profits could eventually be wiped out by higher borrowing costs.

If and when a sale goes through, GMAC debt will likely be more valuable again. But there's a catch. Traders specializing in distressed company debt are already making this assumption. So getting a strong return from even that play could be tricky, though the bonds could provide a steady return for patient investors.

Healy, who owns some GMAC debt himself, said he bought the bonds several years ago for its income potential.

A three-year GMAC bond is currently paying a 9.25 percent annualized yield. A 10-year Treasury note currently yields about 4.4 percent and GM's stock pays a dividend equal to an 8.9 percent yield. But there are some doubts about how much longer GM can support that dividend. For more, click here.

A risky bet, even at current prices
If GM does avoid bankruptcy, the rewards could be handsome for investors.

Earlier this decade, the company's stock traded between 6 and 10 times earnings. So if GM's profits were to eventually get back to about a $5 a share, which is still less than the company earned during the past three years, that could lift the stock to the $30 to $50 range, a gain of about 35 to 125 percent from current prices.

Still, those are all very big ifs. Even GM's top executives aren't forecasting when the company will return to profitability.

Putting aside all GM's cost concerns, its basic problem is the lack of appeal of its cars and trucks.

The company is counting on newly redesigned large sport/utility vehicles and pickups due out early in 2007 to end that slump. But with many concerned about high gasoline prices, sales numbers show consumers are switching to smaller car-based SUVs, an area where GM has little to offer.

So unless you have an iron-clad stomach, making any investment in GM is probably not a good idea right now.

[Newbiewar]

its a steal right now... with almost 10% dividends... that beats inflation... for a long term investment i consider it gold... thats why i'm investing in it :P

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

Banc of America Securities auto analyst Ron Tadross estimates the chance of of GM filing for bankruptcy protection from creditors over the next two years is about 40 percent and that an eventual filing is "inevitable."

Tadross seems to be anti-GM enough. But I think these are the first true words he's offered on the subject. GM will be FORCED into bankruptcy IMO, either by the media or the street, which ever decides to push them over the edge.

[Newbiewar]

Tadross seems to be anti-GM enough. But I think these are the first true words he's offered on the subject. GM will be FORCED into bankruptcy IMO, either by the media or the street, which ever decides to push them over the edge.

[post="59734"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

when its a reality you'll see kirk pull out...

and BofA wouldnt loan money to Kirk if they felt it wasnt a safe investment, heck BofA has a 10% share of GM as well as Kirk... those are 2 people/companys that wont let it happen...

[Hogans_Heroes]

I think GM is a buy at these levels. At $21.80, it's yielding 9.17%. Don't get me wrong, it could very well go lower before it goes higher. My guess is we'll see a pop to the mid to high $20's immediately following a GMAC transaction agreement. You're betting this comes before the January 20th Delphi deadline and I think there's a good chance it will. I look at it from a standpoint of there being a window where you have a potential (any day now) catalyst to the upside before the biggest known potential downside catalyst becomes a possibility. I'd look to then sell GM at a profit following a GMAC announcement, sit on the sidelines for a while, and then buy back at lower prices in the darkest day before any potential Delphi storm. From there, you'll be again locking in a great yield and it will become more of a long-term turnaround play. The GMT9xx SUVs will contribute in 2006 but restructuring charges and one-offs will obscure the results. Hopefully GM can get the majority of charges behind them in 2006. 2007, then, will see nearly a full year of full production of GMT900 pickups and by the second quarter this will be entirely reflected in their financial performance. I'd even look to purchase the more liquid 2008 out-of-money call options like WGMAF.X, WGMAH.X, and WGMAI.X, such is my confidence (though obviously for trading purposes with no intention of exercising at the expiration date). For the truly brave, you could purchase Jan-09 call options at the highest prices possible (which will be available starting in January 2006) at way out-of-the-money prices on the brink of a potential Delphi confrontation in late January. I've already nibbled a bit on Jan-08 $55's the last couple weeks. I'm talking small money, but with the potential for speculative-like returns. If my GM common falls substantially further (I purchased at $23.06), I might even sell it to free up more cash for Jan-08 $55 calls to make it back and more. If this sounds to you a gambling man's losing bet... well maybe it is! But I figure if GM does go down (the chance of which I hardly entertain even for a minute) then, well, I've got bigger things to worry about.

[haypops]

quote=Newbiewar,Dec 16 2005, 12:58 PM]
when its a reality you'll see kirk pull out...

and BofA wouldnt loan money to Kirk if they felt it wasnt a safe investment, heck BofA has a 10% share of GM as well as Kirk... those are 2 people/companys that wont let it happen...

[post="59742"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

[/quote]

some talk of Kerkonian here, but mostly talk of the board[

[haypops]

Tadross seems to be anti-GM enough. But I think these are the first true words he's offered on the subject. GM will be FORCED into bankruptcy IMO, either by the media or the street, which ever decides to push them over the edge.

[post="59734"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Aren't bqankruptcy and bankruptcy protection almost opposites?

[Hogans_Heroes]

[quote name='haypops' date='Dec 16 2005, 05:03 PM']
quote=Newbiewar,Dec 16 2005, 12:58 PM]
when its a reality you'll see kirk pull out...

and BofA wouldnt loan money to Kirk if they felt it wasnt a safe investment, heck BofA has a 10% share of GM as well as Kirk... those are 2 people/companys that wont let it happen...

[post="59742"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

[/quote]

some talk of Kerkonian here, but mostly talk of the board[

[post="59771"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

[/quote]

Nice find! A great read. Pfeiffer and Fisher should step down. Their careers were far less than stellar and they've been on long enough, having presided over a significant amount of decline. They could easily be asked to go.

Also, Fisher unsuccessfully ran a dynastic, slow to change ("Nifty Fifty"!) legacy company which has fallen from grace due to foreign competition and only belatedly moving away from technologically obsolete products which seemed to slowly lose its grip on its respective industry over decades until its decline ultimately heightened. Then, it was delisted from the DJIA. I don't like the sound of it; dump him if for no other reason than bad luck!

Sure, I'd kick him out, kick Pfeiffer out. Bring in York. I also think executive chairmen of the board is really 1990s and probably not in the best interests of shareholders. As the article correctly points out, it's a shareholder-agent problem. I'm surprised ISS or large funds don't make more of a stink about this than they do. Granted, it would be difficult for a working CEO to take on this additional role a la Smale.

Stan O'Neal I really like. There was an interview a long time ago with him in which he described growing up. I think I can recall him saying how his father was a middle manager at General Motors and that maybe his grandfather had worked there too. I'll try Factiva-ing and will post here if anything comes up.

[Hogans_Heroes]

From wood shack to Wall Street - Stan O'Neal - Business Focus - Profile - Intervie w. By Garth Alexander. 2088 words 29 July 2001 The Sunday Times English © 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd Not Available for Re-dissemination. Stan O'Neal, grandson of a slave, is the new president of America's biggest stockbroker. Now he has to stay ahead of the Thundering Herd. Like millions before him, Stan O'Neal fell in love with New York at first sight. He was captivated by the city's energy and excitement and set his heart on finding fame and fortune among its gleaming towers. It is a typical outsider's dream, but O'Neal is different from most. He is the grandson of a slave - a black American born in poverty in the Deep South.. His chances of success in New York were far from promising, especially as he chose a career in the white-dominated world of Wall Street. Last week O'Neal achieved a unique triumph. He was appointed president and chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch, America's biggest stockbroker and one of the world's top investment banks. David Komanksy, Merrill's chairman, says he expects the 49-year-old O'Neal to succeed him when he retires in 2004. If he does, he will become the first black man to head a leading Wall Street firm. O'Neal's remarkable rise from working night shifts on a car assembly line in Georgia to becoming one of the most powerful men in the capital of capitalism is the stuff of legends - and an inspiration to millions of young black Americans who see race prejudice as a barrier to advancing their careers. The appointment comes at a critical time for Merrill Lynch and the securities industry, which is suffering from a sharp slowdown in equity transactions as investors, scared by tumbling share prices, shun the market. Merrill's net profits plunged 41% to $541m ( #380m) in the quarter ending June 29 compared with the same period last year and net revenue fell 19% to $5.57billion. Even more worrying, the firm attracted only $1billion in net new money from American clients, compared with $24billion in the same period last year. More than 3,000 jobs have been axed in recent months and analysts predict another 10% to 15% of the 70,000 workforce could go before the end of the year if business does not pick up. Continuing cost-cutting and the threat of future layoffs is damaging morale. Headhunters have reported a surge in the number of people at Merrill seeking new jobs. As O'Neal takes on his new responsibilities, many will be watching him closely. Some will doubtless hope he fails to lead Merrill out of its troubles. But failure has been rare in O'Neal's unusual life. HE was born in Alabama in a small black community settled by former slaves after the American civil war. He grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing. His school was a one-room shack with a wood-burning stove. Life was tough. "Mostly we grew everything we ate," says O'Neal. "We didn't buy any vegetables. We couldn't afford to buy them - and we didn't need to. We had cows and chickens and hogs." His father found it difficult to support his four children from the manual jobs he did locally and moved the family to Atlanta in Georgia. There young O'Neal, now 13, encountered white boys for the first time. He went to a high school that was in the turbulent and frightening process of being desegregated. "We were bussed from our federal housing project (council housing) to the school. There were incidents every day - fights, name calling and other things. It was very tense. For all these white kids it was the first time they had seen black kids. For the black kids it was the same. There was a lot of tension and it didn't take much to boil over. But it was the first time for me to have a high-calibre educational environment." Just as O'Neal was benefiting from the great changes that were sweeping the South and demolishing centuries of racial segregation and prejudice, so his father was benefiting from similar changes at a General Motors' plant in Doraville, northeast of Atlanta, where he managed to land a job as one of the first blacks to be employed on the assembly line. O'Neal says: "Previously they had only employed blacks as janitors. It was a good job, paid much better than comparable work and the benefits, such as health insurance, were outstanding. Our circumstances started to improve and we moved out of the housing project to a rented house and then to a house we bought." O'Neal enrolled in General Motors Institute, a college at Flint, Michigan, where all the students worked for GM in exchange for their education. "It was a co-operative college, which means you work for a certain period and go to school for a certain period. In those days there were six weeks of study alternating with six weeks of work." At regular intervals, O'Neal would drive the 640 miles back to Doraville to work at his father's assembly plant. After four and a half years he obtained a degree in industrial administration and returned to GM to work the night shift as a foreman on the assembly line. ALTHOUGH he had been an indifferent student at high school and had failed a couple of classes in his second year at GMI, he had by now developed a passion for studying. After two years at Doraville, he won a scholarship to the elite Harvard Business School. While at Harvard, O'Neal visited New York for the first time. He says: "I was just blown away by it. After I graduated, I visited again several times, doing interviews for jobs and the more I came here the more I realised it was the only place I wanted to be. When I decided I wanted to go back to General Motors, the only place to be was in GM's New York treasury office." The treasury office is a training ground for GM executives and provided O'Neal with invaluable experience. Among his contemporaries was Rick Waggoner, GM's present chief executive. During the next six years, O'Neal helped to put together some of GM's biggest deals, including the acquisition of Ross Perot's Electronic Data Systems in 1984 and Hughes Aircraft in 1985. His dealings with Wall Street bankers whetted his appetite for investment banking. In 1987, at the suggestion of a former GM treasurer, Courtney Jones, who had become Merrill's chief financial officer, he decided to join the bank nicknamed the Thundering Herd. According to contemporaries at Merrill, O'Neal was "inquisitive" and "voracious" for information. He made his first mark in the firm's junk-bond department and was soon put in charge of it. He became trading and investment banking co-head in 1997. And less than a year later he had been prodded by Komansky and others to take on the thankless post of chief financial officer. It was a critical moment for both O'Neal and Merrill. The firm was hit hard by the 1998 Russian financial crisis, which triggered the collapse of the global bond market. Merrill had become a leading player in the market and was unable to unload its bonds without suffering huge losses. The bond department was reorganised at a cost of $430m and 3,400 staff were laid off. The New York Times observed afterwards: "As a former head of the capital-markets business, Mr O'Neal had a hand in the build-up that led to the blow-up. How Mr O'Neal managed to survive with his reputation intact as a first-rate financial manager remains something of a mystery, some analysts and current and former Merrill employees said." O'Neal raised more eyebrows last October when he sold 618,640 of his Merrill shares just before they began to fall. They have lost a quarter of their value since then. O'Neal, whose pay last year exceeded $20m, made $40.5m from the sale but says he still has the majority of his wealth in Merrill stock. AS he sits in his 32nd-floor corner office of the World Financial Centre in Manhattan, O'Neal knows he is under pressure to prove to his colleagues that he deserves their trust and can run the firm. He says his first priority is to get to know the staff and their views better. The head of a New York headhunting firm says: "He has to prove himself to them. He is the first leader at Merrill who has never been a broker. There is a lot of uncertainty. Merrill is no longer unquestionably the market leader and it is getting difficult for them to recruit the best people." Analysts are concerned that the two losing candidates in the race for O'Neal's job may now leave the firm. They are Jeffrey Peek, head of the asset management division, and Thomas Davis, head of the institutional-securities group. Amy Butte of Bear Stearns told The Wall Street Journal: "A good indicator of Stan's leadership will be whether he can keep other high-ranking people at Merrill." Like Komansky, O'Neal denies that Merrill needs to merge with a retail bank to survive and compete with ballooning titans such as Citigroup and Credit Suisse First Boston. He says: "We have an enormous balance sheet - $400billion or so - and are extremely well capitalised from an equity point of view. We don't need more size." But Henry McVey, securities analyst at Morgan Stanley, says: "He needs to defend and improve Merrill's corporate position vis-a-vis the other global players, which have commercial banking across multiple product lines." THE fact that there are so few blacks in senior positions on Wall Street clearly concerns O'Neal, but he does not like to make a big issue of it. He says: "Historically, the roots of this business are all about relationships and who you know. The people who tend to wind up in this business are relatives of those working here already, or their friends or neighbours or acquaintances. That process has changed a lot in recent years, but people still tend to hire people like themselves. I think you have to be diligent about being inclusive." O'Neal feels he has often been underestimated because of his race. He remembers being asked at social gatherings in the late 1990s what he did for a living. When he said he worked for Merrill, he would be asked: "And what do you do there?" After saying that he was the chief financial officer, there was invariably a pause, followed by the incredulous question: "Of the whole company?" For many Americans, a black man becoming president of Merrill Lynch is unbelievable. If they knew the full rags-to-riches story, they would probably call it a fairy tale. OTHER AFRICAN-AMERICAN SUCCESS STORIES KENNETH CHENAULT Chenault, 50, became chairman and chief executive of American Express this year. A former lawyer (educated at Harvard Law School) and management consultant (with Bain), he joined Amex in 1981. Since assuming the top post he has battled to salvage a disastrous junk-bond portfolio with write-offs of more than $1 billion this year FRANKLIN RAINES Raines heads the Federal National Mortgage Association (or Fannie Mae), the publicly owned government-sponsored body that buys mortgages from lenders and resells them to investors. A former banker with Lazard Freres, he has also served in the American goverment, most recently under Clinton. His is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School THOMAS JONES Jones, 50, is a senior officer at Citigroup, America's largest diversified financial services company, where he directs global investment management and private banking and is co-chairman of the asset management group. He has been vice-chairman of America's largest pension system, treasurer of John Hancock Mutual Life and a management consultant at Arthur Young CLIFFORD ALEXANDER Alexander, 67, is the head of Moody's, the credit rating, research and risk analysis company. He is a former secretary of the US army and heads Alexander & Associates, a private consulting firm. A graduate of Harvard and Yale, he is former lawyer, past chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations © Times Newspapers Ltd, 2001. Document st00000020010806dx7t00007 Related Factiva Intelligent Indexing™+

[Hogans_Heroes]

HBS Article: "The path from the rural South to the upper echelons of Wall Street is not heavily traveled. Indeed, E. Stanley O’Neal (MBA ’78) is surely the only person who has made the journey from the fields of Wedowee, Alabama — where he labored on his grandfather’s farm picking corn and cotton — to the 32nd floor of Merrill Lynch headquarters at Manhattan’s World Financial Center. As president of Merrill’s U.S. Private Client Group, O’Neal oversees sixteen thousand brokers — or financial advisors, as he calls them — in eight hundred branch offices. Also an EVP and a member of the Merrill Lynch Executive Management Committee, O’Neal is one of the firm’s top officers and is frequently mentioned as being on the shortlist to be the next chairman of the 150-year-old firm. “My father told me I wasn’t cut out for farm work,” says O’Neal, whose easy smile and relaxed demeanor almost belie his stature in the pinstriped, power-brokering world of Wall Street. “I never took it as an insult.” Seated in a conference room with an expansive view of the Hudson River, O’Neal recalls that work was hard to come by in Wedowee, population 750, and the options, particularly if you were poor and black, were limited. O’Neal’s mother worked as a “domestic,” cleaning houses, and when he wasn’t harvesting crops with his three younger siblings, he sold and delivered newspapers. As it turned out, his father wasn’t cut out for farming either, and when O’Neal was 12, his family moved to a housing project in Atlanta, where his father eventually landed a job at a General Motors factory in Doraville. Stan O’Neal attended the General Motors Institute (which later became Kettering University), a co-op program where he alternated between studying engineering and industrial administration and working in the Doraville plant. O’Neal, the first in his family to finish college, says of his undergraduate days, “I really didn’t have an understanding of the world or any role models, but I had a strong desire to learn, and I think that is what pulled me through.” After graduating in the top 20 percent of his class, O’Neal returned to Doraville, working as a supervisor at the GM facility. When he was accepted at HBS, GM gave him a no-strings-attached scholarship."

[Hogans_Heroes]

Okay, this is pretty much flushed out in the references above, but I found the article I'd had in mind: (Most intersting takeaway: 'GM's finance division was losing its influence and O'Neal had his doubts about the future of the entire company, worrying that its success would lead to complacency. "I was concerned I would wake up 10 years hence and be very successful in a context I was not entirely happy with"') "GM SHAPES A LIFE O'Neal grew up in poverty on a farm in the Deep South. He was educated in a schoolhouse built by his grandfather, who was born a slave. His grandmother, mother, and aunts picked cotton. Much of O'Neal's life was guided by his association with General Motors. Too poor to properly support his family, O'Neal's father eventually moved the family to Atlanta, where they lived in a housing project, so he could work at a newly integrated GM assembly plant. O'Neal worked the night shift at the same plant as a teenager. GM sent the young O'Neal to the GM Institute (now Kettering University), where he earned a bachelor's degree in industrial administration. He later received a scholarship to Harvard from GM and spent the first 10 years of his career there. Finally, he met his wife at GM because she was an economist who worked with him in GM's treasury office. ON THE FAST TRACK FOR SUCCESS His first job after graduating from Harvard Business School was with GM, where he began his career in 1978 as an entry-level analyst. In just three years he moved to director level in the treasurer's office. According to John D. Finnegan, chairman of General Motors Acceptance Corp. and a former colleague: "That's about as fast as you can do it." He next worked for GM in Madrid, Spain, as treasurer of GM's Spanish division. Sandy Robertson, founder of the investment bank Robertson Stephens, who dealt with O'Neal during his time at GM, stated: "He was proud of the fact that he had started at the bottom" (both BusinessWeek, November 12, 2001). ARRIVING ON WALL STREET O'Neal resigned from GM in 1987 and changed over to a career in finance, joining Merrill Lynch's investment banking division. His move showed foresight. GM's finance division was losing its influence and O'Neal had his doubts about the future of the entire company, worrying that its success would lead to complacency. "I was concerned I would wake up 10 years hence and be very successful in a context I was not entirely happy with" (BusinessWeek, November 12, 2001) Just three years after arriving at Merrill Lynch he was appointed head of its lucrative junk-bond unit, where he coached a team of young vice presidents in an effort to win new clients. Under his watch, Merrill Lynch rose to number one and remained first or second in junk bonds until O'Neal was promoted to head of global capital markets in 1995. After he left, the company fell to number eight. Bennett Rosenthal, who worked with O'Neal at the time, stated: "I never took Stan on a pitch where we didn't win the business. He was obsessed with being No. 1" (BusinessWeek, November 12, 2001)."

[Hogans_Heroes]

Ugh: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ecn?s=GM

[Polish_Kris]

Tadross seems to be anti-GM enough. But I think these are the first true words he's offered on the subject. GM will be FORCED into bankruptcy IMO, either by the media or the street, which ever decides to push them over the edge.

[post="59734"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Neither the media nor the street will lead it to bankruptcy. It will be Wall Street.

[capriceman]

But wallstreet doesn't sell cars so what do they no about the only thing they can do is count money.

[Robert Hall]

It will be interesting to see how GM's stock goes... I have been buying more lately...I have some in my portfolio, along with Ford and DCX. (I like to hedge my bets in the market, so I have stock in a variety of companies in a segment---HP, IBM, Dell, Oracle, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun for example). Edited December 28, 2005 by moltar

[Hogans_Heroes]

Woe, be careful.  If you're going to invest in auto stocks, or any stock for that matter, pick one for diversification.  GM is in dire striats, but is so beat down by Wall Street and the media that I like it. but more from a speculative play.  Stay away from Ford, it's a mess over there. :AH-HA_wink:

[post="66065"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Tomorrow is another day, to be sure... but GM over just the last three trading days is up 13%! I've gone from down 20.5% at $18.33 to up 4.1%.

Phew!