GM Stock: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares fell as much as 21.6 percent to their lowest level since 1950 on Thursday amid financial market turmoil and the car maker's report of European sales declines through the first nine months of 2008.

GM, whose shares fell as low as $5.42 on the New York Stock Exchange, blamed the credit crisis and inflation for hurting consumer confidence in Europe, where its sales have declined 1.9 percent in 2008 through September.

GM, the largest U.S.-based automaker, posted a $15.5 billion net loss in the second quarter and announced plans in July to cut costs by about $10 billion. The company has been restructuring in North America to meet increasing demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

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Comments

[Gasparilla]

There's plenty of blame here. Both the companies and the auto workers unions fought higher mileage standards for years. We had thirty years of warning that the age of plentiful oil was coming to an end, but we kept producing gas guzzlers while Japan sold ever more of well made fuel effecient cars. Duh. We're a stupid country because we listened to guys like Limbaugh tell us it was no problem driving some gas hog, and transferring our wealth to oil producing countries.

[Viper]

The age of plenty of oil coming to an end is comming. But it was not now... this was speculation and taking 2 million barrels of oil off the market due to Iraq war!

Regards

[KillTheMessenger]

You might want to take a look at the peak oil chart:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Hubbert_world_2004.png

Most producer countries are beyond peak, leaving you with ever fewer choices and almost no friendly nations to import from.

Say hello to Rush!

[PCRX]

LMAO!! So sad - go sit in a Hummer and cry me a river. Maybe if you spent some time paying attention and producing someting efficient for the masses you would not be 1 step from the cliff. I implore everyone out there to post comments to this effect or post "response" vids to this .

[pegbo]

It's not their fault that everyone was buying what they were selling. I have driven a small Saturn for the last 5 years and until the last 7 months I felt like 1 David against a million Goliaths on the road. The SUV's and Pickups just kept getting bigger and everybody had/has one. Only now they are all parked in the driveway and I am not feeling so small anymore. Yes, they should have put a little more effort into developing more fuel efficient vehicles, but how can you blame them for making what you all were buying.

[BernieBernie]

I read some of the comments and I have to say wow! GM is the lifeline to America's future. So congratulations to all that have purchased your Bimmers, Toyota's and Honda's. But remember this when you someday leave from your home and see your brothers and sisters digging through the trash cans looking for food, while driving your foreign vehicle I hope that you will feel the same way as you do now.
Peace be with you!

[KeithMayass]

what kind of stup..d argument is that ?

this is an open market. if you produce c.r.a.p nobody is going to buy it.

you can not blame the consumer because some CEOs wanted bigger bonuses and thus directed their company towards SUVS and gas guzzlers.

there was no law forbidding them to build fuel efficient cars.

they could have instead pushed for more fuel efficient models.

law of the jungle, if you produce sh..t , you go down. don t blame the consumer.

[Viper]

The cosummer was not buying small cars... GM built small cars and they did not seel. They sell small cars in Europe.

Remember the Big car and Truck sales so dominated American car sales that Toyota and Nissan entered that market just a few years ago.

Regards

[PCRX]

Guess what? My Toyota was built in the USA. Make cars that work and are affordable and get decent mileage... GM cannot do any of these things.

[BWonka]

Exactly - after 4 1/2 years, not one problem with my Toyota. The only GM car I'd own would have to be pre-1968.

[Viper]

It was assembled in the US... All the high value parts are made outside of the US.

Assembly is about 600 bucks of the price of the car.

I have a Toyota and a GM car. Both are good products and equal in quality.

Regards

[KillTheMessenger]

GM never was and never will be the lifeline of the US.

It had, at peak, a revenue of $206 billion. Total GDP of the US was 13 trillion. So that's 2% of US GDP. Compare the $600 billion we are spending on oil imports this year and you will notice that whether GM lives or dies makes almost no difference.

GM has 266,000 employees. Total employment in the US is somewhere around 150 million or so. So that's less than one in 500 people working for GM.

[KeithMayass]

instead of wasting 1000s of engineering hours designing a Hummer, the time would have been better spent working on hybrid cars or very fuel efficient models.

unfortunately the US CEOs only think on their bonuses and the next quarter results.

they run billion dollars companies with a short term strategy

bring the tar and feathers.

[JTyroler]

So much for all those Hummers in the parking lot...

[Viper]

I have evacuated in my Hummer twice due to hurricanes... Rita and now IKE.

A dog, a cat, my Wife and me and my busineses servers. Had to sleep in it for days.

Use it in my business. Wish it got better mileage... but its paid for itself.

Regards

[KillTheMessenger]

Bwahhhaaaahahhahhaaa... you are ridiculous.

[JTyroler]

I am glad that you were able to successfully evacuate from both hurricanes. Out of curiosity, could you have done the same in a SUV with better gas mileage? But then, there wouldn't have been the play on words.... ;-)

[apoyo]

And we're supposed to worry about someone's middle name? Sydney?

[PT6]

BUSH ADMINISTRATION MUST LEAVE EARLY TO SAVE AMERICA - NO CONFIDENCE!

Well all the good that Barack Obama did for the market Yesterday with his speech in Indiana (up 300 points from -250 to +108) was later undone by Paulson saying it will take time to get the Bailout moving!

Paulson speech drove the DOW Down from +80 to -185 at close Yesterday!

We Do NOT Need Paulson on TV spreading his confidence destroying NEWS!

We need to hear that progress is being MADE from a Man who has America's Future in Mind!

America needs a LEADER NOW! Paulson is NOT a LEADER! Bush is NOT a Leader!

Barack Obama is A LEADER who inspires Confidence!

[ouroborous]

We have a way to ENFORCE that BushCo leaves early; it's called "impeachment."

Oh wait, that's "off the table." I keep forgetting.

[Danny]

It's gone beyond impeachement, it is now "arrest". Secret s*rvice folks around the WH paying attention.

[KCFreedom]

How's that new CEO working out GM?

[robotsoul]

lol

GM! not a good sign. Excuse me I have to go buy some soup now.

[Sensisnow]

He doesn't care, just so long as he gets his golden parachute like the rest of them.

[ftprairiedog]

How about a Golden Shower?

[chinohillster]

GM, Ford, Chrysler - these companies have acted like the rest of corporate America: sacrifice the future for immediate gain.

I am a 1958 baby; when I got my first car at age 22, my parents (I had a job, but no credit) co-signed for a Chevrolet Monza. That car was a DEATH TRAP - supposedly brand new, the brakes failed, one of the windows shattered when I gave my mother a ride one day and she GENTLY closed the door - I was commuting a long distance from where I lived to where I was working at the time, and I was truly afraid. My parents complained to the dealer where this car was bought, and I got a Chevette (hardly better). Later on, I had a Ford wagon, and promptly got rid of it - my taste for American cars was soured.

The first Toyota I ever had, a gift from my ex-husband's mother, was a Tercel SR-5 Wagon, 5-speed. I LOVED that car, and got a second one like it when the first was totaled (waaah). The second Tercel wagon had nearly the mileage to the moon (over 230,000 miles) when it finally died on the 91 Freeway in Riverside, CA. I next had a Camry (loved that, too), some Hondas (great), and I currently have a product of the Bayerische Motoren Werke.

I would buy a Honda, Toyota, Subaru or even another Bimmer in a heartbeat! But not an American car

[usakaput]

WILL AMERICA EVER MAKE A CAR AS GOOD AS A HONDA? DOUBTFUL WITH IDIOTIC CEOS LIKE GM`S

[sonofsamphm1c]

Lutz is a dumb as it gets.

[BannedInBoston]

GM is actually pioneering a mass-produced electric-motor driven hybrid called the Volt, due out in 2010, 2011, or thereabouts. The car runs on electric motors and the batteries are recharged after about 40 miles by a small gasoline engine which is only for recharging the batteries and not part of the drive-train at all. So technically it's a hybrid (gas + electric) but really, it's basically an electric car and you can also plug it in when you get home.

I agree with a lot of posters here about the record of American car companies vs., say, the Japanese. Hopefully, that's about to change with the Volt (although I'm not holding my breath). Mass-produced electric cars might not solve the overall energy crisis (they will create a lot more demand for electricity) but they could at least help "free us from dependence on foreign oil" (as the campaign mantra by both sides has it).

[PCRX]

VOLT = LAME. An overpriced attempt at yet another "muscle" car. Why can they not make a sensible but loaded car that is electric? Why go all flashy like the volt? Why the delay? Lame. Meanwhile the Prius is 10 years old AND GOING STRONG.

AUTOMAKERS HAVE NO EXCUSE

[rich misty]

It looks as if GM will be bankrupt before a Volt rolls off a commerical assembly line.

Too little, too late

[Danny]

Why do we have to wait until 2011 for a car they had in production in the early 1990s? It was called the EV1, and their leasees loved them (they were not for sale, just for lease, and just in California). They were repposseded in 1995 and destroyed ... on film. See "Who Killed the Electric Car", the documentary.

[bored2tears]

As was noted today on Bloomberg Television, GM now has a market cap lower than Mattel (the maker of Matchbox cars).

This mess has been decades in the making. I fear things will get much worse before they get better.

[KillTheMessenger]

Really? What's next? Lower than General Mills (the maker of "Cheerios")? ($20.12B as of today)

Maybe they could put a real Hummer inside every box? Well, sell a box inside a Hummer, you get the idea...

[MikePatronSaintofTruth]

The US economy is based on a TRICKLE UP theory, and always has. From the poor to the rich. From the middle class to the rich.

Frankly, I'm also happy that so many Americans are losing their pensions and savings. They deserve it. I remember so often walking into middle class eateries at lunch time in Baltimore and Philadelphia and all the middle managers and dull white men were reading the sports pages.... that's all they ever would care to read.... they were LOUSY, unaware, lazy citizens... and guess what?! While they were gawking at the inane sports pages, the politicians ceded power to the corporate capitalists (like Mr. Fuld) who have personally made off with hundreds of millions of investor's money --while the average citizen let it happen.

NO SYMPATHY FOR THE PATHETIC LAZY IGNORANT COMPLACENT citizens of the USA.

[BannedInBoston]

I believe that's called "reverse Robin Hood economics" -- steal from the poor and give to rich....

[Danny]

What's sad Mike, is that the same is true today. Sports, salacious non-news, crime, crime, crime, and weather, and then sports again. The media are complicit in our demise.

[iambusto]

thats what happens when you artificially prop up a "crappy company". The short ban expired today and the market did a price discovery of this trash company.

GM cant arrive at Chapter 11 soon enough.

Btw, why are there so many automakers in the markets anyway (like airlines). The market needs maybe 3 automakers and 3-4 airlines. that way all companies can profit and keep employment.

[bored2tears]

Corporate consolidation is not a solution. It stifles innovation and leads to the "too big to fail" philosophy that has led to government bailouts.

Imagine if there had been 20 or 30 domestic automakers during the first oil shocks of the 1970's ... the nimbler competitors would have been jumped onto the alternative energy bandwagon. Instead, we had 3 companies who successsfully lobbied against higher fuel efficiency standards.

We need more competition, not less.

[iambusto]

too much completion, no profits for anyone. overcapacity in a sector never rewarded a single company.

the key to profits is oligopoly. fewer players, more profits.

[KeithMayass]

yeh, let s buy cars from china .

[ExpatNL]

Why are they sending Nato troops to patrol the streets of America? I got that first hand from my Dutch Marine neighbor. He is packing his bags as we speak.

[Danny]

You're a tro//. U.S. Army will be patrolling our cities. What for I don't know. All I know is that it's against the law, before Bush2 came along.

[Klip]

HONDA
Is the WAY and the LIGHT!