general electric
New York symbol GE, is one of the world’s largest industrial companies. It operates in six main segments: Infrastructure; Commercial Finance; Consumer Finance; Healthcare; Industrial; and Media.
GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $27 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.1 billion; Market cap: $272.7 billion; Priceto- sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 3.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) is selling most office buildings and real estate loans belonging to GE Capital, its financing subsidiary, to a group of investors for $26.5 billion. The company will also hand out its remaining 85% stake in Synchrony Financial (New York symbol SYF), which provides credit card loans through retailers. GE will give its shareholders the chance to swap their stock for Synchrony shares. It will take two years for GE to complete these transactions. After that, the financing business will supply just 10% of its earnings, down from 42% in 2014. The company plans to use the funds from these sales to buy back $50 billion worth of its shares....
SPDR S&P 500 ETF $206.43 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major U.S. companies that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group.
The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, Pfizer, General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway and Wells Fargo & Co. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets.
If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is a buy.
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The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, Pfizer, General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway and Wells Fargo & Co. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets.
If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is a buy.
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GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $27 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.1 billion; Market cap: $272.7 billion; Priceto- sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 3.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) is selling most office buildings and real estate loans belonging to GE Capital, its financing subsidiary, to a group of investors for $26.5 billion.
The company will also hand out its remaining 85% stake in Synchrony Financial (New York symbol SYF), which provides credit card loans through retailers. GE will give its shareholders the chance to swap their stock for Synchrony shares.
It will take two years for GE to complete these transactions. After that, the financing business will supply just 10% of its earnings, down from 42% in 2014. The company plans to use the funds from these sales to buy back $50 billion worth of its shares.
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The company will also hand out its remaining 85% stake in Synchrony Financial (New York symbol SYF), which provides credit card loans through retailers. GE will give its shareholders the chance to swap their stock for Synchrony shares.
It will take two years for GE to complete these transactions. After that, the financing business will supply just 10% of its earnings, down from 42% in 2014. The company plans to use the funds from these sales to buy back $50 billion worth of its shares.
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GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., $28.51, New York symbol GE, rose 11% on Friday on news that it is selling most of its GE Capital subsidiary, which mainly provides loans to GE’s clients. The company has scaled back GE Capital over the past few years, after the division suffered big losses in the 2008/09 financial crisis. Under the plan, GE will sell most of GE Capital’s office buildings and real estate loans to a group of investors for $26.5 billion. That’s equal to 10% of GE’s $259.0-billion market cap (or the value of all of its outstanding shares)....
Getting back to industrial basics, General Electric shrinks GE Capital and finalizes its big deal with French nuclear power giant Alstrom.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock market index or sub-index. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading. Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....
Both GE and ABB (see box) are selling less important assets to concentrate on their main industrialequipment businesses. That should improve their earnings and cut their risk. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $25 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.1 billion; Market cap: $252.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) makes machinery for power generation and distribution (such as turbines) and other products, like jet engines, medical equipment, appliances, lighting and locomotives. The company continues to shrink GE Capital, which mainly provides loans to GE’s clients. In 2014, this business supplied 42% of the company’s operating earnings, but it aims to cut that to 25% by 2016....
Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF, $54.21, symbol MOO on New York (Units outstanding: 26.1 million; Market cap: $1.4 billion; www.vaneck.com), aims to track the Market Vectors Global Agribusiness Index, after expenses. This index includes shares of agricultural firms from around the world. To be included, a company must be publicly traded, have a market cap over $150 million U.S. and meet certain minimum trading volumes. The index contains five major subsectors: agriculture chemicals and fertilizers, agricultural products, agricultural equipment, livestock operations, and biofuels (including ethanol and biodiesel). The geographic breakdown of stocks in the Market Vectors Global Agribusiness Index is as follows: the U.S. (48.9%), Canada (11.0%), Switzerland (8.1%), Japan (6.4%), Singapore (4.1%), Norway (3.8%), the Netherlands (3.1%), Malaysia (3.0%), China (1.9%), Australia (1.9%) and other countries (7.8%)....
GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $25 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.1 billion; Market cap: $252.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) makes machinery for power generation and distribution (such as turbines) and other products, like jet engines, medical equipment, appliances, lighting and locomotives.
The company continues to shrink GE Capital, which mainly provides loans to GE’s clients. In 2014, this business supplied 42% of the company’s operating earnings, but it aims to cut that to 25% by 2016.
As part of this plan, GE recently agreed to sell GE Capital’s consumer-lending operations in Australia and New Zealand for $6.3 billion. The proceeds will help cover the cost of the company’s recent alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading maker of parts for power plants and transmission gear.
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The company continues to shrink GE Capital, which mainly provides loans to GE’s clients. In 2014, this business supplied 42% of the company’s operating earnings, but it aims to cut that to 25% by 2016.
As part of this plan, GE recently agreed to sell GE Capital’s consumer-lending operations in Australia and New Zealand for $6.3 billion. The proceeds will help cover the cost of the company’s recent alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading maker of parts for power plants and transmission gear.
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Vanguard Health Care ETF, $128.42, symbol VHT on New York (Units outstanding: 33.7 million; Market cap: $4.3 billion; www.vanguard.com), holds 48 U.S. health care stocks. Its top holdings are Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck & Co., Gilead Sciences, Amgen, AbbVie, UnitedHealth Group, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene and Biogen Idec. The fund has a low 0.12% MER and a 1.0% dividend yield....