24/7 Wall St.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) will be the last Dow Jones Industrial Average component to release earnings this week. Its financial results will be coming out Friday before the markets open. Dow earnings this week have been very positive for the most part, pushing the index past the 23,000 ark. GE could be a strong close to the week.

While most of the Dow stocks have made a solid run in 2017, GE is at the bottom of the group, with its stock down about 27% year to date. In fact GE is the worst performing Dow stock in 2017, and even over the past 52 weeks.

However, there could be some hope, IBM — another of the top five worst Dow stocks — recently posted earnings, which helped contribute to the Dow pushing above 23,000. If IBM can precipitate such a move with just the hint of rising sales, it’s possible that GE could see a similar push.

For GE’s third quarter, Thomson Reuters has consensus estimates of $0.49 in earnings per share (EPS) and $32.56 billion in revenue. The same quarter in 2016 reportedly had $0.32 in EPS and $29.27 billion in revenue.

This week it even came to light that GE would be partnering with Apple for a joint venture focused on the Internet of Things (IoT). Both companies announced a partnership to deliver powerful industrial apps designed to bring predictive data and analytics from Predix, GE’s industrial IoT platform, to the iPhone and iPad. The two companies unveiled a new Predix software development kit for iOS that gives developers the tools to make their own powerful industrial IoT apps.

In collaboration with Apple, GE is also developing apps for both internal use and its customers, giving workers powerful tools to enhance their jobs and help operations run more efficiently.

Maybe some of Apple’s mojo will rub off on GE.

A few analysts weighed in on GE ahead of the earnings report:

• JPMorgan has a Sell rating.
• Goldman Sachs has a Hold rating with a $23 price target.
• Stifel has a Buy rating and a $26 price target.
• Credit Suisse has an Outperform rating with a $30 price target.
• Morgan Stanley has an Equal Weight rating with a $25 target.
• Argus has a Buy rating and a $27 price target.
• RBC has a Buy rating with a $31 price target.
• Deutsche Bank has a Sell rating with a $21 price target.

Shares of GE were last seen up 1.5% at $23.47, with a consensus analyst price target of $27.80 and a 52-week range of $22.83 to $32.38.

24/7 Wall St.
What This Apple and GE Partnership Could Mean for the Internet of Things