General Electric (GE)

It is shocking how terrible this company has been for shareholders. The balance sheet has always confounded him and the growth wasn’t there. They have some amazing businesses and should be making a ton of money on their aerospace division. Expects that over the next several years there will be a break up of this company with a spin out of different companies. It is extremely hard to analyse.

Has a new CEO, and all of a sudden people are selling like crazy. The new CEO bought about $1 million worth of shares, which is a good sign. They are looking to sell off a lot of assets. Has a big debt load, so it would be good to pay it down. There are going to be huge changes over the next few years. A great company with some great components, but there are going to be some major write-downs coming, and that always discourages investors. The dividend just got slashed in half.

Has been looking at this for signs of when it will be cheap enough and when there will be capitulation, where everyone throws their hands up. You buy this when there is blood in the streets. Chart shows it is still dropping. You want to see some kind of a spike in volume. Volume has been going up, but expects there will be more capitulation/selling coming in. With about $1 a share of earnings, it is still not cheap enough.

Recently sold this from his taxable accounts for tax loss, with the intention of buying it back after 30 days. A new CEO has come in and the market was disappointed, but he doesn’t know what they were expecting. You want a CEO to “under promise” and “over deliver”. Investors are looking for a CEO who will “overpromise” and “hopes he delivers”, which is not realistic. He isn’t upset that the CEO is under promising to start with. Thinks it is going to take 2 to 3 years for the new CEO to prove himself. His new clients are buying this.

Wouldn’t bother with this. He doesn’t understand a lot of their decision-making right now. Just had their analysts’ day and have been pushing really hard to say they have to sell rail right now, when they are making it very clear to everybody that it’s the bottom of the cycle. If they have to sell those assets and are admitting it’s the bottom of the cycle, that says something about their balance sheet. If you own, he would get out.

This is a mess, and not one that any individual is going to solve in a quarter or 2. Monday is a very important day, because they are doing an investor presentation. Earnings are likely not going to be much north of $1 a share. Their cash flow is in terrible shape. If they cut the dividend, which he expects, and lay the groundwork for a long-term recovery, the stock might have some legs into the low $20s. He wouldn’t want to be involved in its early days.

Has been a disappointing stock. It is pretty phenomenal what’s been happening with the company. The cash flow is going to be about half of what they originally guided. Then you start wondering if the dividend is safe. The plan for the new CEO is to start selling some assets and get the balance sheet debt down. It’s always tough with these types of turnarounds to see how successful he is going to be.

Looking at the relative performance of the industrial sector, it has really struggled to break out. However, underneath the surface, machinery has been unbelievably strong, aerospace and defence has been incredibly strong, electric components has recently broken out. What held the sector back are the conglomerates, which includes General Electric. They had a very sloppy quarter and not all questions were addressed. This is definitely not the time you would buy this.

Had never liked this because GE Capital masked a lot of the other returns, so the stock used to trade at a huge multiple because of their so-called stable earnings. It was a massive finance company that could manipulate the earnings. In 2008, it became unstable. They have a new CEO who has to 1) take a lot of costs out, 2) sell a lot of businesses and 3) cut the dividend. They’ll be having their investor day very soon, and thinks they should cut the dividend. Probably a great buy between $15 and $20.

He would stay away from this at this time. Think of it as the Titanic trying to turn like a speedboat. A mega company that is making major, major changes, especially in terms of selling assets and acquiring businesses. A couple of years ago, they sold off $70 billion of their GE capital assets. That allowed them to give up their banking charter and lower their capital requirements. Throughout all this, they did the largest acquisition in history, which they are still trying to digest. There are a lot of integration risks.

A concern he has is the potential of a dividend cut in November. Most analysts are encouraging them to cut the dividend to help right side the ship. There is a lot of value in a company like this if they can turn it around. They started to turn the company around about 6 months ago, and doesn't think you are going to see much until Q4 of 2018. He would recommend buying half around the dividend cut. Being a tax loss candidate at the end of the year, Buy your 2nd half in late December, post tax loss selling, or early next year as you get more clarity. It sets up for a nice trade. Dividend yield of about 4.8%.

Used to be a bellwether stocks; as went General Electric, so goes the market. It has moved away from that. He likes that there is a spot in 2015 that we are pretty close to right now. This is coming back to a long-term trend. If it drops 2%-3% below, it is probably going to revisit some lower number. Bottom fishing is only good if you've got someplace to hang your hat. A good risk/reward.

It’s amazing how much good publicity Jeffrey Immelt got. The stock performance under his tenure was just terrible. He is gone now, and it looks like the new guy just wants to clean house. The debt was put on credit watch this past week, meaning that even the bonds are coming under pressure. It might be a little early to get into this. He would like to see something good come out of the company before he bought the stock.

This could follow a similar pattern of Walmart, the worst performing stock on the Dow, but has been a home run since. Has a new CEO in place, who is doing what most CEOs are doing, trying to clean up the mess they inherited, selling off non-core businesses and trying to repair the balance sheet. Thinks this is going to be significantly higher in value 3 or 4 years from what it is today. Dividend yield of 4.4%, which he is comfortable with.

He would hold it until the team turns it around. The action in the market is such that they laid out a plan to go forward. They have two sectors that are not good and he thinks they have a plan for that. The turbine business was also disappointing. He is going to give them some breathing room rather than sell into this. He will watch over the next weeks and months.