24/7 Wall St.

General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) shares are feeling a sting today after Citigroup lowered certain targets for the company: 

• Citi’s official price target has been cut from $48.00 down to $45.00;
• Citi’s estimates on GE’s 2008 EPS were taken down from $2.50 to $2.45;
• Citi warns of greater loss provisions due to delinquencies and charge-offs.

Citigroup’s call appears a pre-meeting maintenance call as analyst Jeffrey Sprague did maintain his official BUY Rating on GE, and noted that he expects GE to continue buying back stock and may raise its dividend to show another vote of confidence on its earnings front.

This call is a week and a day ahead of Jeff Immelt hosting GE’s annual performance review and business outlook meeting in New York on December 11.  We’d expect to see more research notes over the next few days ahead of the GE meeting.

Deutsche Bank had already been cautious over the last 60 days.  First Call’s consensus estimate for 2008 is $2.50.

GE shares are down 2.7% at $37.22 today, and the 52-week trading range is $33.90 to $42.15.  This also takes the stock back under the $37.76 level that is the 200-day moving average.

Jon C. Ogg
December 3, 2007