General Motors Reaches New 52-Week High - Analyst Blog
May 07 2013 - 8:30AM
Zacks
Shares of General Motors Company (GM) hit new
52-week high of $32.44 on May 3, which is above its previous level
of $31.08, and closed at $32.10 on the same date. Their last
closing price was $31.82, which represented a solid one-year return
of 42.0% and year-to-date return of 9.2%.
The world’s second largest automaker (by sales volume) has a market
cap of $43.9 billion. Average volume of shares traded over the last
three months stood at approximately 11,149.1K.
Shares of the company started escalating following its announcement
of revival plan in Europe and U.S. Treasury department’s
announcement of selling a significant stake in the company.
Last month, Chairman and CEO of GM, Dan Akerson, promised to invest
€4 billion ($5.2 billion) in its European opeartion Opel without
revealing any plan to close down plants or other specific measures
in order to boost earnings. Opel plans to launch 23 new models and
13 new engines within 2016 and develop a small car platform with
French partner PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUGY).
In the same month, the Treasury Department revealed that it sold
$621 million worth of GM common stock in March, recovering $30.4
billion of the $49.5 billion bailout fund received by GM.
GM reported a 28.0% fall in earnings to 67 cents per share in the
first quarter of the year from 93 cents in the same quarter of 2012
(all excluding special items) due to lower earnings generated from
the company’s all geographic operations except Europe. Despite
this, the automaker’s earnings exceeded the Zacks Consensus
Estimate by 11 cents per share.
Revenues in the quarter slid 2.4% to $36.9 billion, despite a 3.6%
rise in retail unit sales to 2.4 million vehicles globally.
Nevertheless, it was higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of
$36.4 billion.
General Motors is gearing up for more than 40 major vehicle
launches in 2013 across the globe in order to drive sales and
revenues. In addition, the company expects that its European
results will improve further based on its cost reduction
measures.
GM’s archrival Ford Motor Co. (F) posted an
increase of 4.1% in earnings to $1.6 billion and 5.1% in earnings
per share to 41 cents in the first quarter of 2013, beating the
Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3 cents. Revenues improved 10.5% to
$35.8 billion, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $32.8
billion.
The improvement in revenues and earnings was mainly attributable to
Ford’s strong performance in North America and Asia Pacific Africa.
The company’s results were disappointing in South America due to
unfavorable exchange rate as well as in Europe due to the sluggish
economy.
Currently, shares of GM retain a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). While we
remain on the sidelines about General Motors, stock that is
currently performing well in the broader auto industry includes
Visteon Corp. (VC) with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong
Buy).
FORD MOTOR CO (F): Free Stock Analysis Report
GENERAL MOTORS (GM): Free Stock Analysis Report
PEUGEOT CIT-ADR (PEUGY): Get Free Report
VISTEON CORP (VC): Free Stock Analysis Report
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