Posted on 06/19/2018 3:50:31 PM PDT by Magnatron
For the first time in 110 years, General Electric will not be a member of the elite Dow Jones Industrial Average.
S&P Dow Jones Indices announced on Tuesday that the iconic maker of light bulbs and jet engines will be replaced in the 30-stock index by Walgreens Boots Alliance.
GE (GE) was an original member of the Dow in 1896 and has been in it continuously since November 7, 1907.
Being ousted from the Dow is the latest indignity for GE, which is dealing with a serious cash crisis caused by years of bad deals. GE has replaced its CEO, slashed thousands of jobs and cut its coveted stock dividend in half.
Last year, GE was the worst-performing stock in the Dow, losing almost half of its value. GE is down by another 25% this year.
"We are focused on executing against the plan we've laid out to improve GE's performance," a GE spokeswoman said in a statement. "Today's announcement does nothing to change those commitments or our focus in creating in a stronger, simpler GE."
To pay down a mountain of debt, GE is selling off long-held businesses. Last month, GE agreed to sell its century-old railroad division. GE is also searching for a buyer for its struggling light bulb division.
GE's stock plunge helped lead to its exit from the Dow. That's because the Dow is price-weighted, meaning that GE's $13 price tag had little impact on the index. S&P noted that GE had a weight of less than half a percentage point.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Those are and will be a disaster. We have to fight those with everything we got.
On one hand it is sad to see another iconic US manufacturer on a downhill slide.
On the other hand if the quality of all their products is as poor as the horribly junky GE refrigerators, washers and other household appliances we have had to throw away over the years they deserve it.
CFLs are a fire hazard. I have two in a drawer that got so hot they burned holes in the base.
It doesn’t make much business sense for GE to have promoted CFLs. They were making a fortune selling short lived incandescents. (I still have a case of Sylvanias in the cabinet - they lasted a lot longer than the GEs - that I saved for places one shouldn’t use CFLs. They should last me a lifetime now that I’ve gone to LEDs.) But the fact that it would have been a bad business decision is some evidence that GE would have gone down that path.
There are many index funds to choose from. The Dow 30 is the smallest broad-based index fund. If you want the broadest broad-based index fund, go with the Wilshire 5000. Why should the Dow change?
The GE appliance brand is owned by a Chinese company - Haier.
For years, I didn't have much problems with incandescent bulbs manufactured in the USA. Then they shut down the domestic plants and imported bulbs from China. They were burning out almost as quickly as I installed them. We had 100W to 200W bulbs that lasted for years, the new ones only lasted months (if that). We were hesitant to switch to CFL bulbs. We tried a couple, only to have them explode. One CFL did so in our bedroom, and that's the last time we bought any. We shopped around and bought as many incandescents on the cheap as stores discounted them. The old made-in-the-USA ones are the best. Recently we started installing LED bulbs and are happy with them; they're brighter than the ones made several years ago and don't burn out.
“If they can keep their wind turbine business going and get their share of the offshore wind projects coming to the USA, they will be ok.”
Offshore wind Project? Since when have the liberal NIMBY’s given into wind unless it is out of site out of mind in deserts, or prairies?
immelt's entire tenure was firefighting.
Now the new guy is doing the right thing by shrinking and focusing on profitability. He's create a stronger and better GE
But he needs time
Bears repeating. Immelt was a total disaster.
There’s more of a market for both the methane and wet gases from wells. The first shipment to Europe was over a year ago. Those will increase unless Russia severely cuts their price.
The grid will still need peaking units. Unlike the baseload plants the peaking units can be started and shutdown remotely from a dispatch center. It’s nice to flip a switch and bring as much as 200 MW online.
GE’s management has been so inept it’s almost like having Comey and Mueller run the FBI into the ground.
What is happening to this country? What happened to accountability? Sure people fail, but we fire them so they don’t continue for years causing damage. I guess everyone is now entitled to their jobs like they have tenure.
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