General Electric stock in the toilet

[kx250rider]

Before anyone buys, do some homework. If GE has it's mitts in any mortgages, keep clear! That's one of GM's problems, since they went into home loans, and Ford didn't (that I ever heard). GM is in peril, and is getting $ from Uncle Sam, and Ford declined to apply. I know that GE owns a lot of financial entities, and it would actually surprise me if they aren't somehow on the hook for $ a few billion in dead mortgages. GE Capital loans money for commercial construction and large real estate ventures.... EEK! I haven't looked at GE's charts, but if it's tanking faster than the average, there's a reason.

Charles

[kx250rider]

Originally Posted by Walshdriver

Time to buy,buy,buy!! I am putting every penny I can find into the stock market right now. Everything is 50% OFF. Sale of a lifetime.

Be careful..... Things aren't always how they appear. And that advice comes not from me, from very seasoned, successful investors on my father-in-law's side of the family. I won't drop a name, but it's one we've all heard. That person sold 80% of his market holdings, and would have sold 100% if not for tax reasons to keep impending losses to come. And those are bio-tech stocks, which will probably "crash less hard" than others. And by the way: I wouldn't keep any sizable assets liquid. The value of the cash will plummet just like stocks. If it goes where it looks like it could, a person who has $250,000 in the bank, might just be able to get a year's worth of groceries. Think Germany; post WW I. The big guns are sticking to real estate, oil, and certain bonds.

Charles

[Ampire]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

Be careful..... Things aren't always how they appear. And that advice comes not from me, from very seasoned, successful investors on my father-in-law's side of the family. I won't drop a name, but it's one we've all heard. That person sold 80% of his market holdings, and would have sold 100% if not for tax reasons to keep impending losses to come. And those are bio-tech stocks, which will probably "crash less hard" than others. And by the way: I wouldn't keep any sizable assets liquid. The value of the cash will plummet just like stocks. If it goes where it looks like it could, a person who has $250,000 in the bank, might just be able to get a year's worth of groceries. Think Germany; post WW I. The big guns are sticking to real estate, oil, and certain bonds.

Charles

IMHO (masters in acctg/finance), that would be a good move to divest from risky biotech however, i would recommend buying into a index fund eventually because as he said, "sale of the century". If the DJIA is 6800, and was trading twice that, we are in an amazing time to buy buy buy. The tricky part is finding the bottom, and I have no idea where that is right now

Real estate is a good buy. The worst thing possible are the advertisements on cnbc and other news places that say "now is the time for gold!". Yeah, buy gold while its high, what a great idea!

[nasadowsk]

I'd avoid GE's stock:

* They've abandoned lightbulbs and consumer products, more or less totally. This will eventually bite them in the public perception ("Remember when GE made...") area, not to mention, everyone needs lightbulbs...

* Heavy financers. They're like the #1 or #2 aircraft lessor, among other things. Commercial aviation ain't doing so hot now, and won't for a while.

* They're not excelling at anything they do, and their customer service blows. Their industrial divisions are dreadful - poor delivery dates, worse support, products that don't play with each other. Despite GE's PLCs being 1/3rd the cost of Allen-Bradley or Siemens, the latter two own the market. There's a reason why.

* Toshiba's kicking their ass in the nuclear market. Most early ESBWR customers are now running from it to the AP1100. I'm not sure if it's cost or nervousness about the design, which is somewhat radical - the first large scale natural circulation nuke plant proposed.

* Rolls and Pratt are catching up in jet engines. If Pratt's geared turbofans work (and they pretty much do, at this point), they'll kick the CFM-56 right off the wings of the 737 and everything else. Rolls is catching up on the large end, fast.

* They're a nothing in the railroad industry. Siemens, Bombardier, and Alstom sell to more places with a much better product. GE's confined to developing world markets - they can't get any real sales in Europe. The NYC subway no longer buys GE for traction equipment. Nobody buys last decade's technology if they can avoid it.

* NBC's going nowhere but down.

Frankly, I'd be surprised if GE's around 10 years from now. They're doing all of Westinghouse's mistakes, only faster.

[andy]

000

[classictv80s]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

Be careful..... Things aren't always how they appear. And that advice comes not from me, from very seasoned, successful investors on my father-in-law's side of the family. I won't drop a name, but it's one we've all heard. That person sold 80% of his market holdings, and would have sold 100% if not for tax reasons to keep impending losses to come. And those are bio-tech stocks, which will probably "crash less hard" than others. And by the way: I wouldn't keep any sizable assets liquid. The value of the cash will plummet just like stocks. If it goes where it looks like it could, a person who has $250,000 in the bank, might just be able to get a year's worth of groceries. Think Germany; post WW I. The big guns are sticking to real estate, oil, and certain bonds.
Charles

Wrong, inflation is when you have too many dollars chasing after too few assets and goods. Since most of America's money supply is debt, the debt is largely being defaulted on, which explains why the vast majority of Americans have very little or no money. What we are seeing now, as a result, is too few dollars chasing after too many assets and goods, and that means deflation - not inflation.

You mention Germany post-World War I and their hyper-inflation, but that was caused primarily by Germany having to pay huge reparations as a result of the Versailles Treaty, this made them completely insolvent, in addition to their economic base and infrastructure largely being devastated as a result of the war. The Weimar Republic was in even worse shape than the United States is today. The best comparison you could make with America's economic situation currently is Japan in the 1990s, though the two situations are not entirely similar.

Getting back to the original topic, the current economic situation will eventually, years from now, cause most of the major electronics companies worldwide to go under, including of course General Electric. And it doesn't help the situation any that the quality of consumer electronics products today is absolute junk.

Many people, largely on the Internet conspiracy theory web sites and forums, like to claim that the US government will simply print even more money, and that will guarantee us a future of hyper-inflation. Not true, first of all if they tried that, there would be a massive US bond market sell-off worldwide because the treasuries would be basically worthless, due to the dollar totally collapsing. Of course, the US bond market has already been in a huge bubble for many years now, and it's only a matter of time before the foreign investors, as well as many Americans, quit financing the massive debt of the United States government. The bubbles in real estate and commodities such as oil will continue to burst, and eventually return to reasonable, sustainable, and affordable price levels. The future is deflation, and despite all of their panicked efforts, there is nothing that the United States government, the politicians, or anyone else will be able to do about it. The future is deflation and a 30-to-40-year economic depression, as a result of decades of too much spending, too much borrowing, and too much debt, in both the public and private sector.

[shimniok]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

Be careful..... Things aren't always how they appear. And that advice comes not from me, from very seasoned, successful investors on my father-in-law's side of the family. I won't drop a name, but it's one we've all heard. That person sold 80% of his market holdings, and would have sold 100% if not for tax reasons to keep impending losses to come. And those are bio-tech stocks, which will probably "crash less hard" than others. And by the way: I wouldn't keep any sizable assets liquid. The value of the cash will plummet just like stocks. If it goes where it looks like it could, a person who has $250,000 in the bank, might just be able to get a year's worth of groceries. Think Germany; post WW I. The big guns are sticking to real estate, oil, and certain bonds.

You're hinting at hyperinflation. Certainly that's possible. But we've been at risk of deflation for awhile. I gather a large part of this is the unavailability of credit effectively reducing the monetary supply in the market. "too few dollars chasing too many goods" as posted by classictv80s.

I did some reading awhile back on this and my intuition is that it is not exactly a dead simple thing. But I gather that hyperinflation won't be a problem yet. It isn't quite as simple as "the fed prints money therefore we have hyperinflation" It's dependent on the monetary supply (in part) but that also includes all the credit that isn't available right now. Where we might run into trouble is if those financing our debt (China being a major one) don't anymore and we have no other choice than to print money to do it, as well as if the credit flood gates open at some point and the fed isn't able to reduce the monetary supply in response. Another thing that could be problematic is confidence in the dollar.

Michael

[Ed in Tx]

Shoulda bought that GE stock back on 3-4 at $6... 2 weeks later (today) it's near $11.

[kx250rider]

Only time will tell......... 'til then, we're not putting anything on credit, not buying any stock that we're afraid to resell the next day, and most of our investments are now tied to the cost of living (agriculture, commodities, and certain real estate), and not to the value of the dollar nor to corporate America's success or failure. All of our credit cards are paid off to zero each month, no car payments, and definitely no 401K to risk in someone else' hands, and we consider our Social Security deposits to be gone. If we do (miraculously) get anything back when we retire and apply for our Social Security, it will be a nice surprise, and I really WILL BE surprised if there's any money left in there.

Some people are OK with insecurity and being high-rollers, so long as they have their ski boats, Harleys, new BMWs, Armani suits, summers in Europe, and naturally, a $3 million house with -(50%) equity on a 5 year, interest-only loan, and tons of cash pulled out of everything they own in order to "invest" (gamble) riskily, in order to have more, more, MORE than the guy up the street. That's why some of them are exactly where they are today (bankruptcy court, and looking for an apartment which will accept an applicant with a foreclosure), and we're where we are (used Toyotas, 1990s wardrobe, 1980s TVs), and we can support ourselves, by ourselves, for the duration of this economy crash just fine. If at least half the citizens would live 1/2 way closer to within their means, none of us would be screaming and crying about foreclosure crises and bank failures. I think we'll buy a pawn shop... We'd take in plenty of ski boats, Harleys, Armani suits, and BMWs at 10 cents on the dollar

True we're driving used Toyotas, eating home-prepared meals with left-overs, wearing clothes from eBay and Walmart. But MAN, the deep nights' sleep and the paid-off mortgage is great!


Charles

[wa2ise]

In any event, if you do decide to buy some GE stock, just don't put more than 10% of your money into any one thing, or into the hands of any one broker or investment operation. There's that old concept of the investment pyramid, most of your money in stable and reasonably secure stuff, and a little in high risk stuff.

That way, if it tanks, or it turns out to be a Ponzi scam, at least you still have 90% of your money still around.

[waltchan]

Not sure if there are any cordless phone collectors, but GE announced on November 2008 that they will exit the cordless phone market altogether :

http://www.appliancedesign.com/Artic...00000000463768

This got me really excited and I went out and buy GE's last, flagship DECT6.0 cordless phone, which is their Cell Fusion lineup model 28129 series, selling at closeout price. This will be me my first new cordless phone ever as I have always hold against buying one at anytime soon, unless there is one that can consider to be collectible. I bought two boxes as I am storing one just in case my first one died or I need it for parts.

It may not worth anything right now, but in 10 years, it will be part of history. If your cordless phone is old and needs to be replaced, this is a perfect time to upgrade to GE's last and best cordless phone right now.

http://www.home-electronics.net/ge/p....asp?idpage=33

If you are not aware, GE was the inventer of the DECT 6.0 digital cordless phone technology. GE was the first brand to show up in stores with DECT 6.0. Sound quality is exceptional.

[andy]

000.

[peverett]

I can attest that GM was into mortgages(at least at one point in time). Mine was sold to GMAC. I paid it off several years ago, so am not sure about now.

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by andy

I'm not trying to offend, but I always assumed GE's phones were just re-branded crap made by the lowest bidder.

GE phones are made by Thomson themselves. The FCC-ID on the back of the phone is G9H.

[tensleep]

http://www.hometheatermag.com/news/0...neralelectric/

It will be interesting to see if GE continues with this plan, considering the economy.