“While the fate of General Motors as a company is being debated by legislators and others, investors would agree that GM will be removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average as the common stock faces the likely prospect of heading to zero despite efforts for a bailout of workers and suppliers,” Mike Havrilla writes for Seeking Alpha.
Among a short list of companies (Abbott Labs, Amgen, Cisco) to consider as a replacement for GM on the Dow, Havrilla also suggests Apple Inc.
Apple (AAPL) has emerged as the technology bellwether and stock market leader, soaring over 900% in the past 10 years and its iPhone is outselling Motorola (MOT) and Research In Motion (RIMM) while its Mac and iPod brands continue to gain market share.
Full article here.
Japanese car lovers are so anxious to put GM out to pasture.
General Motors isn’t going anywhere. They’ll come back stronger than ever now that the Democrats, friends to the American worker, are fully in charge.
“They’ll come back stronger than ever now that the Democrats, friends to the American worker, are fully in charge.”
So the only thing holding GM back was the dastardly Republicans in the White House? It had nothing to do with GM’s sales, profits, products, business plan, cost management, or company management?
So I guess we can assume the last 8 years of Apple is all thanks to George W Bush?
R2,
You are either joking or you’re one delusional A-hole.
What’s really going on: After destroying it with regulations, the government is preparing to take over the auto industry.
And I’ll trade my BMW for something from GM when you pry the steering wheel out of my cold, dead fingers.
MDN Magic Word: “present” – As in, Obama’s favorite vote.
If the demoncats are such friends of the M’erican Wage Slave then why do they buy so many Prius’ and bring so many South of the Border Labor Workers north?
AAPL is almost always the 2nd Most Active by Dollars Almost always the 2nd “Most Active by Dollars Traded” on Nasdaq stock. (The 1st is PowerShares QQQ that includes Apple so I don’t count it as the 1st standalone company stock.)
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary/screener.asp?exchange=15&view=7&lookup=Look+Up
At some point, Apple will be given the stock market respect it deserves! Dump GM and pick up Apple!
There are too many causes of the Big-Three auto makers’ decline to blame it simply on Republicans or Democrats. How about consumers who had to have a big car or an SUV, both of which sucked down a bunch of gas and now costs a fortune to fuel?
People are on waiting lists for Toyota’s Prius because of its fuel economy. The Japanese had the wisdom to look beyond instant gratification and ego. Too bad many Americans were more concerned with image and ego.
Some think GM is self-eliminating from the DOW.
You make junk, so you can’t sell it, so then you fail.
Unless you get too big, then you get a Democrat bailout.
That way, you can continue to make junk, eventually fail again and then you get another Democrat bailout.
It’s like public housing and Welfare: it never ends – until a Republican revolution rolls around to clean up the mess.
The next one is due to begin in two years with the midterm elections.
It’s being TOO friendly to the American worker that got GM (and the others in Motown) in the pinch they are in. Defined benefit pensions, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc…
Then enter the perfect storm of a huge spike in fuel prices (but how big of a factor was that since gas is now $2 again and auto sales are still tanking) and financial crunch and they just can’t take it anymore. It was even too much for the likes of Honda and Toyota.
In places around the world where GM is not so interfered with by the host government WRT fuel standards and labor concessions, they are extremely successful. They are able to find a balance and do very well.
GM and its stock are a representative of the old manufacturing era of the USA. If that is still need on the Dow to be reflective of the broad economy then they should stay on. The Detroit 3 directly employ about 200,000 people and indirectly (suppliers, etc) about 3,000,000. Still pretty relevant even if they are old-line manufacturing.
The stock will come back. They are all waiting for 2010 when a lot of labor concessions kick in…in other words, when things are less friendly to the American worker of GM, but still better than the American worker for Toyota. We shall see.
twilightmoon, you jackass. How do you draw from my statement that Republicans are responsible for GM’s situation?
My point was that Dems won’t allow one of our most important American companies to fall, as opposed to the Bush administration who refused to even meet with the Big Three CEOs until last year.
GM collapsing means millions of American jobs lost. Barack Obama and the Democrats are clearly more cognizant of the company’s worth to an already struggling economy. Republicans don’t give a damn.
GM is fine! Really! They just opened a NEW PLANT IN RUSSIA!
Mark: “People are on waiting lists for Toyota’s Prius because of its fuel economy. The Japanese had the wisdom to look beyond instant gratification and ego. Too bad many Americans were more concerned with image and ego.”
I’ll certainly give the Japanese credit where it’s due, but to say that the Japanese had foresight when the Americans did not, you’re forgetting Americans had very cheap gas up until very recently for many decades.
The Japanese live on a small island with higher population density than the US, meaning less space, and in general things cost more, and getting a driver’s licence is substantially harder.
These conditions I believe are more what drives Japanese engineering for their cars. It just so happens that the rising cost of gas has given them a headwind and made their more fuel efficient vehicles more desirable. The American car companies should have seen some of this coming and worked on products that could compete but sadly they did not.
R2: “GM collapsing means millions of American jobs lost. Barack Obama and the Democrats are clearly more cognizant of the company’s worth to an already struggling economy. Republicans don’t give a damn.”
GM collapsing is necessary if they can’t compete in an open market. We don’t live in a government run communist economy (yet).
Perhaps that’s desirable to you, but not to me, and not to anyone who values freedom. GM is free to make whatever products they wish, and if they can’t sell them at a profit then they go out of business like any other company. Are jobs lost? Certainly, but it’s not the responsibility of the government to assure everyone has a job.
Not everyone works for GM, and those who do not which are *most* Americans by the way, should not have to pay for the mistakes of GM or any other company by “bailing them out.”
maybe Apple should by GM with that 25B
One of the reasons, among many, for their current fiscal mess is that GM and Ford payed more attention to GMAC, and Ford Credit than they did to innovations in auto manufacturing. It didn’t help that Reagan actually lowered the energy efficiency standards in the mid-80’s.
mw: quality – hmmm.
“The stock will come back. They are all waiting for 2010 when a lot of labor concessions kick in…in other words, when things are less friendly to the American worker of GM, but still better than the American worker for Toyota. We shall see.”
Exactly, “General Motors.” GM just needs a few more years until they can get the healthcare monkey off their back when the UAW VEBA deal kicks in.
Those who harp about GM failing because of the so-called inferiority of their cars never mention the legacy healthcare costs that drop upwards of $1,500 onto each vehicle they sell.
Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter which wing of the Business Party is currently in control of the government. They will save at least one of the Big Three because they need somebody to build their tanks and humvees for them.
No, but you could replace both Intel AND Macroshaft with one little Apple.
I understand many Americans do not believe 40 or 50 miles per gallon is feasable and would prefer to make mega-billionaires of Arabs in order to swan around in gas guzzlers like they always did in the good ole days.
Well very few American cars are sold in Europe because they are just too big and far too thirsty. They have had their day. Gas prices are headed only one way and thats up and up.
If Ford & GM want to survive they had better start manufacturing in the US the cars they manufacture so successfully in Europe.That includes diesels of course.
Hate to say it, but Apple isn’t the kind of diversified global power that gets a place on the Dow average. It takes more than iMacs and iPhones to get into the same club-of-giants as GE and 3M.
Someday Apple might be on the index, and I hope they are. But they aren’t yet.
As bad as 2008 has been for the Dow, imagine the index if AAPL’s performance had been factored in…..
R.I.P. GM. The unions have destroyed your company. I hope you don’t get a bail out. You don’t deserve it. You have been a leach on the American taxpayer for years. Meanwhile, European and Asian car companies are out selling and out engineering you. You had no foresight when it came to making fuel efficient cars and now you are trying to get the American taxpayer to pay for you to retool your factories when you should have done it 10 years ago.
No, Apple should replace Microsoft.
Meanwhile, GM, Ford and Chrysler are literally relics of a bygone age. They should be left to their own devices and allowed to self-destruct. New and better US auto companies are required right now, and this will not happen until these dinosaurs die out.
Throwing them a bone via the US feds is hilarious, a waste of time and tax payer money. These old dogs have made it quite clear for decades that they refuse to learn new tricks. Wave goodbye. The future is waiting…
If the federal gov’t really wanted to help out the auto makers, they would lower corporate tax to 15%, making us competetive with the rest of the world, and change the safety standards to match up closer to Europe’s that way, many of the fuel efficient cars that have been developed by the Big Three for Europe, could be sold here in the U.S.A.
GM screwed the pouch years ago, now they have to pay the piper. Same goes for Ford and Chrysler, greedy bastards.
Trouble is that the cars GM and Ford produce in Europe, good as they are don’t seem to appeal to the average American buyer, or at least in the numbers required. It seems that buyers who want such a smaller, more efficient or prestige car tend to buy Japanese or European manufacturers models, and in ever increasing numbers.
As therefore the traditional American car market shrinks so does the only area where American producers can actually make money. Having seen something very very similar destroy the British motor industry and don;t laugh remember it once had 60% of the world motor bike market I don’t hold out much hope for GM or Ford unless they can fundamentally change their image in their home market and their appeal to the average ‘new wave’ buyer there. That has seldom if ever been achieved when the existing image has been so entrenched.