Reckoning at Hand for General Electric?

By Charles Ortel February 19, 2018

If your hackles are not yet up concerning the outlook for highly indebted multinational companies such as GE in a possible looming crisis of 2018, they ought to be. From September 2008 until recently, we operated in a new world without traditional controls, prepared to believe everything, and happy to own almost anything.

Skeptics were mocked, as markets rocked. However, in recent months, benchmark interest rates in the United States -- the largest market in the world -- are trending upwards after 10 years at historic low levels. As interest rates rise, most asset values will fall. Declining asset values are especially for complex borrowers like GE. Now, investors are, again, agonizing, trying to assess how rising interest rates will affect the values of companies. It is no wonder that GE and its stock price should be back in the spotlight............It wasn’t “easy being green” for GE under Obama Under Jeff Immelt from March 2009 through his departure in 2017, GE’s directors, executives and professional advisors evidently learned little from their “near-death” experience. Perhaps Immelt should have spent less time working with President Obama, and more time on his day job at GE............ Read more