Urbane Gorilla!

GE Has Been Woeful, Go For a Sector ETF Instead

I think that most people think of GE as an appliance manufacturer - Not too surprising as that's the most common exposure to the Brand. In fact, it really is more a 'broad based mutual fund' with fingers in all aspects of the market. (Health care, banking, construction, aerospace, appliances, wind-generation, etc..) This aspect of GE makes it harder to pigeon-hole and instead of a buyer being able to assign risk based on a sector approach, you're open to downsides in various aspects of the economy.

Having said that, if you truly are a 'long-term' investor,it would seem that now would is a pretty good time to buy. Eventually, financials will perk up, and based on the clear upside to the hardware side of GE (it has a 6 month backlog of orders... ) The company should rebound to it's old levels. That's a pretty good return, and as noted above, with a 4% dividend to boot.... That's presuming that GE doesn't have to cut it's dividend as most financials seem to these days...

Thx jegan ;-)