Industrials

General Electric Doesn't Relinquish Rank as Dow's Worst Performing Stock

Paul Ausick

Published: April 7, 2018 9:20 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 1:40 am

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) was not the worst performing Dow stock last week, but the shares dropped more than 3%, enough to virtually cement GE’s place as the index’s worst performer of the year to date. Shares are down about 25.2% so far in 2018.

The second-worst Dow Jones industrial average stock so far this year is Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), which is down 14.6%. That is followed by Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT), down 12.2%, and DowDuPont Inc. (NYSE: DWDP) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), both down 10.5%.

The Dow dropped 170 points over the past week and closed at 23,932.76, down less than 1% for the week.

GE began the week with an announcement that it will sell part of its health care IT business to Veritas Capital for $1.05 billion. GE’s health care business posted sales of about $19 billion last year, and the part that was sold includes only the health care staffing and payroll services software.

On Wednesday the company said it would restate results for 2016 and 2017 by April 13 to reflect a new accounting standard. GE already had announced a first-quarter charge of $4.2 billion related to the change.

Then on Thursday, proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services recommended that GE dump KPMG as its accounting firm. Glass, Lewis & Co., another proxy advisory firm, had recommended similar action earlier in the week. KPMG has been GE’s accounting firm for 109 years.

GE stock closed at $13.06 on Friday, down 2.8% for the day, in a 52-week range of $12.73 to $30.54. The 12-month consensus price target on the stock is $17.78.

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