Moody’s Worthless Review Of GE Dividend Cut (GE)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Invalid Image
Unfortunately, the ratings agencies still have some who rely upon what they say.  That is still the case when it comes to General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and its triple-A rating.  Now that the company has cut the dividend, Moody’s is updating its ratings.

Moody’s has said that its review for possible downgrade of the long-term ratings of General Electric’s “Aaa” senior unsecured and General Electric Capital Corporation “Aaa” senior unsecured continues even after the dividend cut.  Moody’s said the move will reduce the aggregated dividend by about $9 billion to about $4.5 billion.

The report says that the reduction in the dividend will address some of the concerns over the stress upon GE.  But the report also states that the review for possible downgrade continues.

The initial January 27  report centered on GECC’s asset quality, the industrial cash flows, and continued tight credit markets.

In short, there is really nothing new here.  We still think a shot has been fired across the bow at G.E. by the ratings agencies.  We at 24/7 Wall St. still consider all of this as part of a long process of a “Downgrade-Lite Call” from the agencies.  Maybe there is some good news here right now.  Technically, GE is still officially Triple-A.

Jon C. Ogg

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

AKAM Vol: 21,556,944
MU Vol: 65,135,624
INTC Vol: 227,504,426
MNST Vol: 15,284,847
DELL Vol: 12,167,525

Top Losing Stocks

MSI Vol: 3,101,643
EXPE Vol: 4,189,786
CTRA Vol: 73,319,495