6 ms·

In what way is GE a dying company?

by jaywalk 4y ago

phone8675309 4y ago
By every conceivable metric, including culturally
- FourHand451 4y ago
  Can you say more about these metrics, for those of us who don't know?
  - trident5000 4y ago
    idk about culturally but financially theyve been decimated from their former self. It was a very large conglomerate and they strategically kept certain parts and spun off others so there probably is a resilient business or two in there somewhere but it will mostly likely always be a shadow of its former self.
    - JamesSwift 4y ago
      All I know is, a bunch of former GE people came over to a former company and basically tanked our engineering department. The engineers that migrated were successful overall (not 100% good hires, but definitely more than 50%), but all of the management that switched were terrible. It doesnt help that one of those managers also took over the Director of Engineering position, so had an outsized impact.
  - lantry 4y ago
    How about the price of their stock? If you bought their stock any time after 1997 you've lost money on that trade link to price chart: https://g.co/kgs/rsz5vj https://g.co/kgs/rsz5vj
    - Bluecobra 4y ago
      Maybe if you bought and held it, but there were plenty of opportunities to make a quick buck in recent years. Before the split the stock was down to like $5-$6 in 2018 and doubled in the price in part to the work that Culp has one.
    - ensignavenger 4y ago
      Didn't GE spin out or sell a lot of their business after that time? So you would have to look at the stock price for all of those spun out businesses too. (EDIT: and also any dividend they may have paid out over that time period.)
    - doodlebugging 4y ago
      >If you bought their stock any time after 1997 you've lost money on that trade Regardless of what you see on that chart, this is not correct at all. I bought in October 2020 when the price began to bounce up or trend up from a long-term low. I am up on that investment more than 25% as of this morning. I also bought Ford just as their stock began to bounce off of the lows in early 2020 and am doing well on it too. Your performance on any stock purchase is strongly tied to the date you purchased it and the health of the company at the time. I watched these stocks of old-school conglomerates decline as people moved money to new tech offerings. These companies are not going anywhere so I bought when the price movement confirmed a new up trend and have held since. I did the same thing years ago with Corning in late May of 2002, when at the time, they were the only company on earth that produced the glass for LCD display monitors and they produced most of the fiber-optic cable and the pc industry was beginning to recover while entities everywhere were planning to upgrade fiber-optics after the huge dot-com bust. I paid just over $1/share as it built the right side of the cup pattern on a big bounce. Corning survived of course and went on to continue to dominate glass-making with Gorilla glass being nearly ubiquitous in consumer products not to mention their huge fiber-optics production. GE used to be into everything. They have shed a lot of under-performing or non-aligned assets but they still have a huge role in diesel-electric locomotives, jet engines, etc. They will spin off a few things but that only allows them to improve focus. At least GE has real products to spin off. Many of these new tech VC-backed XaaS operations (some of which I have occasionally invested in) have nothing more than slippery marketing ploys pitched to gullible, cash-rich investors who have money to burn.
  - tiahura 4y ago
    Market cap, earnings, Dow Jones listing, Q score, Netcraft rating.
- kgwxd 4y ago
  My Roper washer (cheapest option at the time, I had never heard of them) died last week. This time, GE was the cheapest option. In a few years I expect to have a Samsung that will require a subscription to run heavier loads.
  - buescher 4y ago
    Haier bought GE appliances a while back. They are just using the name under license.
  - seren 4y ago
    GE appliances is not owned by GE anymore (since 2016), it is now a subsidiary of Haier, a Chinese company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      I can't speak to their washers, but I've been pleasantly surprised with my Haier refrigerator. I needed a very specific width to fit my kitchen, and theirs was pretty much the only not-obscenely-expensive option due to being a non-standard size. It has gone without any need for repair far longer than other new refrigerators my extended family has bought, but it also doesn't have an ice maker or water filter- just a really dumb refrigerator and freezer that (knock on wood) Just Works.
      - TMWNN 4y ago
        Refrigerators may be the one market in which the Chinese (Haier, at least) have a better reputation than the Koreans. The consensus (based both on what I've seen online, and a refrigerator repairman I consulted) is that Samsung and LG refrigerators are trouble-prone.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    If you're willing to go a step above cheapest, Speed Queen should last few years longer, and be repairable. (judge the quality of appliances by how much BROKEN ones sell for on the various sites)
tmiahm 4y ago
This is a pretty good book that captures a lot of how GE went from probably the most influential company in the business world to what they are now: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/50086786-lights-out https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/50086786-lights-out
- theironhammer 4y ago

In what way is GE a dying company?

phone8675309 4y ago

By every conceivable metric, including culturally

FourHand451 4y ago
Can you say more about these metrics, for those of us who don't know?
- trident5000 4y ago
  idk about culturally but financially theyve been decimated from their former self. It was a very large conglomerate and they strategically kept certain parts and spun off others so there probably is a resilient business or two in there somewhere but it will mostly likely always be a shadow of its former self.
  - JamesSwift 4y ago
    All I know is, a bunch of former GE people came over to a former company and basically tanked our engineering department. The engineers that migrated were successful overall (not 100% good hires, but definitely more than 50%), but all of the management that switched were terrible. It doesnt help that one of those managers also took over the Director of Engineering position, so had an outsized impact.
- lantry 4y ago
  How about the price of their stock? If you bought their stock any time after 1997 you've lost money on that trade link to price chart: https://g.co/kgs/rsz5vj https://g.co/kgs/rsz5vj
  - Bluecobra 4y ago
    Maybe if you bought and held it, but there were plenty of opportunities to make a quick buck in recent years. Before the split the stock was down to like $5-$6 in 2018 and doubled in the price in part to the work that Culp has one.
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    Didn't GE spin out or sell a lot of their business after that time? So you would have to look at the stock price for all of those spun out businesses too. (EDIT: and also any dividend they may have paid out over that time period.)
  - doodlebugging 4y ago
    >If you bought their stock any time after 1997 you've lost money on that trade Regardless of what you see on that chart, this is not correct at all. I bought in October 2020 when the price began to bounce up or trend up from a long-term low. I am up on that investment more than 25% as of this morning. I also bought Ford just as their stock began to bounce off of the lows in early 2020 and am doing well on it too. Your performance on any stock purchase is strongly tied to the date you purchased it and the health of the company at the time. I watched these stocks of old-school conglomerates decline as people moved money to new tech offerings. These companies are not going anywhere so I bought when the price movement confirmed a new up trend and have held since. I did the same thing years ago with Corning in late May of 2002, when at the time, they were the only company on earth that produced the glass for LCD display monitors and they produced most of the fiber-optic cable and the pc industry was beginning to recover while entities everywhere were planning to upgrade fiber-optics after the huge dot-com bust. I paid just over $1/share as it built the right side of the cup pattern on a big bounce. Corning survived of course and went on to continue to dominate glass-making with Gorilla glass being nearly ubiquitous in consumer products not to mention their huge fiber-optics production. GE used to be into everything. They have shed a lot of under-performing or non-aligned assets but they still have a huge role in diesel-electric locomotives, jet engines, etc. They will spin off a few things but that only allows them to improve focus. At least GE has real products to spin off. Many of these new tech VC-backed XaaS operations (some of which I have occasionally invested in) have nothing more than slippery marketing ploys pitched to gullible, cash-rich investors who have money to burn.
- tiahura 4y ago
  Market cap, earnings, Dow Jones listing, Q score, Netcraft rating.
kgwxd 4y ago
My Roper washer (cheapest option at the time, I had never heard of them) died last week. This time, GE was the cheapest option. In a few years I expect to have a Samsung that will require a subscription to run heavier loads.
- buescher 4y ago
  Haier bought GE appliances a while back. They are just using the name under license.
- seren 4y ago
  GE appliances is not owned by GE anymore (since 2016), it is now a subsidiary of Haier, a Chinese company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    I can't speak to their washers, but I've been pleasantly surprised with my Haier refrigerator. I needed a very specific width to fit my kitchen, and theirs was pretty much the only not-obscenely-expensive option due to being a non-standard size. It has gone without any need for repair far longer than other new refrigerators my extended family has bought, but it also doesn't have an ice maker or water filter- just a really dumb refrigerator and freezer that (knock on wood) Just Works.
    - TMWNN 4y ago
      Refrigerators may be the one market in which the Chinese (Haier, at least) have a better reputation than the Koreans. The consensus (based both on what I've seen online, and a refrigerator repairman I consulted) is that Samsung and LG refrigerators are trouble-prone.
- bombcar 4y ago
  If you're willing to go a step above cheapest, Speed Queen should last few years longer, and be repairable. (judge the quality of appliances by how much BROKEN ones sell for on the various sites)

tmiahm 4y ago

This is a pretty good book that captures a lot of how GE went from probably the most influential company in the business world to what they are now: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/50086786-lights-out https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/50086786-lights-out

theironhammer 4y ago