How to buy General Electric Company stock | 7.29

General Electric Company is a specialty industrial machinery business based in the US. General Electric Company shares (GE) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. General Electric Company employs 189,400 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$83.9 billion.

How to buy shares in General Electric Company

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for General Electric Company. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: GE. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until General Electric Company reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$7.29, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of General Electric Company, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of General Electric Company. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

How has coronavirus impacted General Electric Company's share price?

Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, General Electric Company's share price has had significant negative movement.

Its last market close was USD$7.29, which is 40.49% down on its pre-crash value of USD$12.25 and 23.56% up on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$5.9.

If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of General Electric Company shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$498.39 at the bottom of the March crash, and if you held on to them, then as of the last market close they'd be worth USD$594.65.

General Electric Company share price

Use our graph to track the performance of GE stocks over time.

General Electric Company shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2020-11-23.

Latest market close	USD$7.29
52-week range	USD$5.4628 - USD$13.2051
50-day moving average	USD$7.8057
200-day moving average	USD$6.9271
Wall St. target price	USD$8.89
PE ratio	25.0256
Dividend yield	USD$0.04 (0.41%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$0.352

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Is it a good time to buy General Electric Company stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of General Electric Company by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

General Electric Company price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the close of $7.29 from 2020-10-19

1 week (2020-11-18)	-25.08%
1 month (2020-10-23)	-4.46%
3 months (2020-08-25)	10.62%
6 months (2020-05-22)	13.73%

1 year (2019-11-25)	-37.05%
2 years (2018-11-23)	-3.70%
3 years (2017-11-24)	-59.92%
5 years (2015-11-25)	-75.99%

Is General Electric Company under- or over-valued?

Valuing General Electric Company stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of General Electric Company's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

General Electric Company's P/E ratio

General Electric Company's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 25x. In other words, General Electric Company shares trade at around 25x recent earnings.

That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.

General Electric Company's PEG ratio

General Electric Company's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 6.1772. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.

The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into General Electric Company's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

General Electric Company's EBITDA

General Electric Company's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$7.2 billion.

The EBITDA is a measure of a General Electric Company's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

General Electric Company financials

Revenue TTM	USD$83.9 billion
Operating margin TTM	1.4%
Gross profit TTM	USD$18.8 billion
Return on assets TTM	0.28%
Return on equity TTM	12.38%
Profit margin	4.52%
Book value	$3.797
Market capitalisation	USD$88.2 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting General Electric Company shares

There are currently 81.7 million General Electric Company shares held short by investors – that's known as General Electric Company's "short interest". This figure is 8% down from 88.8 million last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting General Electric Company shares can be evaluated.

General Electric Company's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

General Electric Company's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of General Electric Company shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of General Electric Company shares traded daily (recently around 111.9 million). General Electric Company's SIR currently stands at 0.73. In other words for every 100,000 General Electric Company shares traded daily on the market, roughly 730 shares are currently held short.

However General Electric Company's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of General Electric Company shares, or, against the total number of tradable General Electric Company shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case General Electric Company's short interest could be expressed as 0.01% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 General Electric Company shares in existence, roughly 10 shares are currently held short) or 0.0094% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable General Electric Company shares, roughly 9 shares are currently held short).

Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against General Electric Company.

Find out more about how you can short General Electric Company stock.

General Electric Company's environmental, social and governance track record

Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like General Electric Company.

When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.

General Electric Company's total ESG risk score

Total ESG risk: 48.86

Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and General Electric Company's overall score of 48.86 (as at 01/01/2019) is pretty weak – landing it in it in the 97th percentile of companies rated in the same sector.

ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like General Electric Company is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).

General Electric Company's environmental score

Environmental score: 16.69/100

General Electric Company's environmental score of 16.69 puts it squarely in the 6th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that General Electric Company is a leader in its sector terms of its environmental impact, and exposed to a lower level of risk.

General Electric Company's social score

Social score: 22.75/100

General Electric Company's social score of 22.75 puts it squarely in the 6th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that General Electric Company is a leader in its sector when it comes to taking good care of its workforce and the communities it impacts.

General Electric Company's governance score

Governance score: 16.42/100

General Electric Company's governance score puts it squarely in the 6th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. That could suggest that General Electric Company is a leader in its sector when it comes to responsible management and strategy, and exposed to a lower level of risk.

General Electric Company's controversy score

Controversy score: 3/5

ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. General Electric Company scored a 3 out of 5 for controversy – a middle-of-the-table result reflecting that General Electric Company hasn't always managed to keep its nose clean.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary

General Electric Company was last rated for ESG on: 2019-01-01.

Total ESG score	48.86
Total ESG percentile	96.96
Environmental score	16.69
Environmental score percentile	6
Social score	22.75
Social score percentile	6
Governance score	16.42
Governance score percentile	6
Level of controversy	3

General Electric Company share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 23.53% of net profits

Recently General Electric Company has paid out, on average, around 23.53% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 0.41% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), General Electric Company shareholders could enjoy a 0.41% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In General Electric Company's case, that would currently equate to about $0.04 per share.

While General Electric Company's payout ratio might seem low, this can signify that General Electric Company is investing more in its future growth.

General Electric Company's most recent dividend payout was on 26 October 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 25 September 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have General Electric Company's shares ever split?

General Electric Company's shares were split on a 104:100 basis on 26 February 2019. So if you had owned 100 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 104 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your General Electric Company shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 3.8% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for General Electric Company shares which in turn could have impacted General Electric Company's share price.

General Electric Company share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, General Electric Company's shares have ranged in value from as little as $5.4628 up to $13.2051. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while General Electric Company's is 0.7768. This would suggest that General Electric Company's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).

General Electric Company overview

General Electric Company operates as a high-tech industrial company in the United States, Europe, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa. It operates through Power, Renewable Energy, Aviation, Healthcare, and Capital segments. The Power segment offers technologies, solutions, and services related to energy production, including gas and steam turbines, generators, and power generation services. The Renewable Energy segment provides wind turbine platforms, and hardware and software; offshore wind turbines; solutions, products, and services to hydropower industry; blades for onshore and offshore wind turbines; and high voltage equipment. The Aviation segment provides jet engines and turboprops for commercial and military airframes; maintenance, component repair, and overhaul services, as well as replacement parts; integrated digital components; and additive machines and materials, and engineering services. The Healthcare segment provides healthcare technologies in medical imaging, digital solutions, patient monitoring, and diagnostics; drug discovery; biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies; and performance enhancement solutions to hospitals, medical facilities, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and life science research markets. The Capital segment leases and finances aircraft, aircraft engines, and helicopters; provides financial and underwriting solutions; and manages its run-off insurance operations which provides life and health insurance and reinsurance products. The company was founded in 1892 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of General Electric Company is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 0.245% of General Electric Company shares are held by insiders and 62.417% by institutions.

• How many people work for General Electric Company?

  Latest data suggests 189,400 work at General Electric Company.

• When does the fiscal year end for General Electric Company?

  General Electric Company's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is General Electric Company based?

  General Electric Company's address is: 5 Necco Street, Boston, MA, United States, 02210

• What is General Electric Company's ISIN number?

  General Electric Company's international securities identification number is: US3696041033

• What is General Electric Company's CUSIP number?

  General Electric Company's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 369604103