General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) is expected to report earnings on Thursday morning before the open. This would have come on Friday, but Good Friday has the markets closed. As the top conglomerate, GE is a market moving stock by its own strength. And as far as talk of Jeff Immelt leaving early, that may still be a year or more out.
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24/7 Wall St. has created a full preview for GE shares going into earnings. Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.32 in earnings per share (EPS) and $34.36 billion in revenue. For all of 2014, that is expected to be $1.70 EPS and $150 billion in revenues.
GE sports a price-to-book ratio of almost two to one, but the conglomerate’s balance sheet is so complicated that this number is perhaps a moving target rather than a fixed fact — and that will be a wild card around the coming IPO. GE’s market cap is $260 billion, making it the largest conglomerate. Its forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is less than 14.5, giving it a somewhat discounted value to peers. That may change as the company’s U.S. consumer finance unit IPO comes closer to fruition. How the market will treat the separation is still up in the air.
ALSO READ: The Bullish and Bearish Case for GE in 2014
With a consensus target price of $28.73, GE has an implied upside of 11.3% — plus there is the 3.5% dividend yield to consider. In Tuesday trading, GE shares closed at $25.82, and the 52-week trading range is $21.11 to $28.09. The mid-Wednesday share price was up to $25.92.
Our take is that GE’s report likely will be dominated by more talk of the consumer finance unit spin-off. This will be far from simple to execute, although GE’s ambition is to get a higher P/E valuation as an industrial conglomerate rather than the current valuation as a bank and a conglomerate mixed.
As a reminder, GE is one of Warren Buffett’s top dividend yield stocks.
GE shares have spent most of 2014 in a trading range between $25 and $26.50, and the stock recently bounced off the 50-day moving average. That 50-day average is currently down at $25.52, and the 200-day moving average is at $25.02.
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