GM Share Prices Go Retro In Search Of Better Times, Wagoner Hits YouTube To Shore Up Confidence

Andrew Stoy — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:40:00 EDT

Ford's trading at a price lower than a gallon of gas today, but how's their publicly-traded Detroit-based buddy doing on Wall Street this week? The Detroit News reports in the past five days of stock trading, General Motors has lost more than a quarter of its value, closing at $6.91 Wednesday (and dropping below $5 a share today). That's the lowest the automaker's stock has been since 1953 — meaning GM's share price hit a 55-year low. We'd all like to think that this is nothing more than GM trying to again cash in on the whole "retro" trend, first with the resurgence of the muscle car wars and now with 50s-era stock prices. However, we know that's just a good punchline. Back to the future — GM is in a more precarious cash flow position than Ford, who is facing a similar market stock price crash, since Ford hocked pretty much everything two years ago in exchange for $23 billion in loans. So what do you do if you're GM? Put the boss on YouTube, of course.

We're told the share price declines haven't affected the way the two companies conduct their daily business, but as University of Michigan business professor Gerald Meyers noted, "It's like finding out that you have a terminal disease. You try to do something about it, but you know and everyone around you knows that you are in deep trouble." He would know: Meyers was a former Chairman and CEO at American Motors. [Detroit News]

Two Gallons of Gas Equals One Share Of GM Stock

Andrew Stoy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:00:00 EDT

GM shares dropped to their lowest point in 40 years yesterday, closing at $11.43 when the bell rang. To put things in perspective, if you bought a new-for-1968 Camaro instead of, say, 245 shares of GM stock (about the same price at the time), the car would have been a significantly better investment. Yeah, we're excluding splits, dividends and the like, but they're not convenient for the point we're making. In a statement containing several unnecessarily large words, Goldman analyst Patrick Archambault said he "expects GM shares to continue to underperform as market fundamentals deteriorate which exacerbates liquidity concerns." Translation: GM's cars aren't selling so it's gonna spend all its cash.

Of course, GM looks like Apple next to Ford shares, which are sitting at a measly $5.07. However, Ford is rated as a "neutral" while GM stock was downgraded to "sell." Why? Because that's where the dart landed, we'd assume. Isn't that how all this stock stuff works?
[Automotive News (sub. req.); Photo Credit: Freakingnews.com]

Jalopnik: gm stock prices

GM Share Prices Go Retro In Search Of Better Times, Wagoner Hits YouTube To Shore Up Confidence

Two Gallons of Gas Equals One Share Of GM Stock