GM earnings report delayed, NYSE halts shares
General Motors was supposed to issue a press release detailing its third quarter earnings results at 10:30AM EST this morning, a time which has come gone without a word from the General. As a result, the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading of the automaker's stock at 11:04AM pending the results. An interview that GM CEO Rick Wagoner had scheduled on Bloomberg Television to coincide with the earnings announcement at 10:30AM has also reportedly been pushed back to 12:55PM. The automaker is mum on what's taking so long to release its Q3 report, which is widely expected to contain terrible earnings news. While some are suggesting that the delay implies these results will be worse than expected, we don't see how waiting a few extra hours is going to change the numbers one way or another. We do, however, expect GM not to sugar coat its poor financial performance in the third quarter, as the louder it screams the sky is falling, the more likely the federal government will step in with more low-interest loans or even a cash injection. Stay tuned, we'll report when the numbers finally arrive.[Source: Bloggingstocks]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Pavan 11:50AM (11/07/2008)
They just did. A $4.2 Billion net loss.
http://media.gm.com/servlet/GatewayServlet?target=http://image.emerald.gm.com/gmnews/viewpressreldetail.do?domain=827&docid=50141
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redshift 11:53AM (11/07/2008)
That loss is on an adjusted basis. And they just blew through $6.9 Billion in cash through the Q3....how the hell?..
Kotse 12:24PM (11/07/2008)
Bye, bye...Volt.
Russell 12:28PM (11/07/2008)
Bye bye American economy. :)
john 11:51AM (11/07/2008)
CNBC reported this morning that GM is burning through 2.4 billion cash each month.
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XiozTzu 11:53AM (11/07/2008)
Also from AP
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081107/earns_gm.html
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sk 11:53AM (11/07/2008)
Ignore above comments, here are the right numbers:
"General Motors reported a $2.5 billion net loss for the third quarter Friday. The automaker cited unprecedented economic and credit market turmoil, and added that it burned through $6.9 billion in cash due to a severe auto sales slump in the U.S."
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Hunter 11:58AM (11/07/2008)
To think, just yesterday there were folks here mocking Toyota for having their profits halved from $12billion to $6billion.
$6billion is $10,000,000,000 more than MINUS $4billion guys.
It's time to put Opel in charge.
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Kitko 12:01PM (11/07/2008)
Exactly, while Toyota halves profits, GM and Ford are not far from doubling their losses and running out of cash. The US lost 250K jobs in the same quarter.... It doesn't look good.
Big Rocket 12:01PM (11/07/2008)
These are low-interest loans made to a high-risk borrower, with every American taxpayer being forced to become the collateral. It is the worst of both worlds: high risks and low payoffs. Rather than handing out billions upon billions of low-interest loans every now and then, with no end in sight, I argue it would be a better solution in the long run for GM to enter into bankruptcy protection. A bankruptcy court can slash unaffordable executive compensation and void unsustainable labor contracts, which means GM can re-emerge leaner and meaner. And I strongly disagree with the fear tactics that GM advocates have used, that America as we know it would end if GM declared bankruptcy. Like any lobbyist on Capitol Hill, the Big 3 advocates are just exaggerating the importance of their industry, exaggerating the number of jobs that will be lost without a government bailout, in the hopes of fleecing the American taxpayers. Because the leeches know they have fleeced the Big 3 corporate accounts as much as they possibly can, the parasites are now looking for new victims to rip-off: you, me, and every American taxpayer. These parasites, from executives with corporate private jets and multi-million-dollar salaries, to UAW workers that cost their companies over $60 per hour in labor and $100,000 in contract buy-outs, deserve to suffer from all the consequences of their very own corporate plunder.
And before someone mentions the same statistics of potential (read: exaggerated) job losses, allow me to debunk them:
Washington Post: "The Center for Automotive Research said this morning that if ... GM, Ford and Chrysler ... fail, it will mean the loss of 3 million jobs across the entire auto sector in the first year of collapse. Should Detroit production drop by 50 percent ... some 2.5 million jobs would be lost, the report says."
The Ohio State University: "Dr. Giorgio Rizzoni, Director, Center for Automotive Research... His research has been funded by, among others, General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Delphi , Visteon, Dana, ArvinMeritor, Fiat, Honda, Lamborghini..."
It should be readily clear the Center for Automotive Research, whose job loss prediction has been quoted widely here and elsewhere, is heavily tied to the auto manufacturers' lobby in general, and the Big 3 in particular.
Sources:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/2008/11/report_3m_jobs_lost_with_autom.html
http://car.osu.edu/drupal/index.php?q=node/46
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Gabagool 12:07PM (11/07/2008)
Couldn't have put it better myself.
Exmxer 12:14PM (11/07/2008)
Well said, and with proper quotes.
Thanks to you to state what others can't or don't want to see!
Noidor 12:24PM (11/07/2008)
Of course it's fear mongering done in Donald Rumsfeld style!
Unfortunately shortsightedness prevents people from realizing that US does neet an automotive industry, but it must be self-reliant and efficient. GM and Chrysler (Ford to an extent) have shown to us that over past 30+ years they have failed to set up a sustainable long-term business model.
I think it's time for them to go away, let investors buy up the assets, and then come back with a leaner, smarter fundamentals.
What's going on right now with bailouts is silly, they know that the government is broke, but they still want them to 1) print money out of thin air 2) raise taxes (and then blame Obama for it).
This means that in long-term GM does not care about any of you, any of their workers, or stability of the US economy.
why not the LS2LS7? 12:21PM (11/07/2008)
Wrong article. This one is about operating losses, not about bailouts. There will be plenty more opportunities for you to ctrl-V your text into other, more appropriate threads.
Who 'Dis? Who 'Dat? 12:36PM (11/07/2008)
You da' man, B.R.!!!
Big Rocket 12:37PM (11/07/2008)
@LS2LS7: The Autoblog article here mentioned "low-interest loans or even a cash injection", so it was only appropriate for my previous article to touch upon why these would be bad options for our country in the long run. It was far from being off-topic as you implied. Now, if you or others object to the arguments I presented in my previous post, then by all means, speak up. Who knows, I may copy and paste any follow-up debunking in my future posts.
tankd0g 1:46PM (11/07/2008)
Ford is running out of cash, they just had less to start with.
zamafir 12:56PM (11/07/2008)
uh kitko... "Ford announces $129 million Q3 loss", GM announced a $2.5 Billion Q3 loss". Ford's not running out of cash at all, it might be prudent to inform yourself by reading articles such as the one Autoblog posted this morning on the topic. Ford's been doing everything they can proactively to slow their bleeding to the point that, in net terms, it's a fraction of GMs, and they can still sell Mazda and Volvo if they need to (which they may not with over 20 billion in assets right now). Informing yourself is a lot more fun then rampant general baseless speculation :).
dan spalinger 12:03PM (11/07/2008)
AND GM itself says that it will run out of money in '09 and cease operating if it doesn't get some sort of MASSIVE inflow of money which will just be blown through and put them right back at the same point this time next year...Do YOU as a taxpayer want to hand over near $3 billion a month to GM to keep them operating while they sell fewer and fewer cars and keep those union employees pushing buttons and taking coffee breaks?!? Its time to let them fail...
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jamie 12:21PM (11/07/2008)
Do you realize what you are saying?
If the DET3 were to fail then
239, 341 direct employees would lose their jobs. That would lead to 973,969 indirect employees losing their jobs also.
The spinoff employment reductions would affect another 1,738,034 more people who would lose their jobs.
In total 2,951,344 people would lose their jobs.
The economy would crash completely under the strain of such a large number of people hitting the social welfare rolls.
Your income taxes would have to be increased substantially to pay for these newly unemployed workers, if you weren't one of those lucky ones who lost their job already.