NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co's third quarter profit beat expectations, but its revenue fell short.
OLIVER PURSCHE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AT GARY GOLDBERG FINANCIAL SERVICES IN SUFFERN, NEW YORK
"I certainly wouldn't sell the stock on anything in this report.
"GE Capital continues to improve. The trouble spots, which would give us a little bit of concern, is that some of their equipment sales are down. They're growing, but growing less than what we had hoped.
"It's tough to tell why the stock is down. It wasn't an overwhelmingly strong quarter, where you blow everyone away. If you put it in contrast to other reports, like Google, it could be just that investors like Google better than GE."
JACK DE GAN, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, HARBOR ADVISORY CORP, PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE
"GE is in a positive place after two years of struggling. it would be hard for them to do a really poor job now. it's starting to behave like an industrial now.
"GE has a big medical business and that business has not grown in this environment because of a lot of cost pressures on hospitals and clinics. Obamacare will cause even more spending constraints, so a big piece of their business isn't really growing (very well).
"What investors would really like to see is a GE capital that supports the GE industrial businesses. When it gets back to its industrial roots, it will be a pretty cyclical business. and that's OK. They're investing heavily in emerging markets.
In the new normal world, you can't expect to see much in backlog growth. It would have been positive to see it growing. It didn't, and I'm thinking foreign exchange may have had something to do with that. Next quarter they'll probably get a tailwind in their backlog."
GEOFF WILKINSON, HEAD OF INVESTMENT RESEARCH, MINT SECURITIES, LONDON
"It's a big domestic play but also a big emerging market play. I am interested to see where the earnings came from. The key to this is what they did in the States and what they did in international. If it is holding up in the States, it is great for the U.S. If it is holding in the Far East and underperforming in the U.S., that's not the same thing."
PETER SORRENTINO, PORTFOLIO MANAGER, HUNTINGTON ASSET ADVISORS, CINCINNATI
"The revenue number missed by $1.6 billion ... That's real money at some point. That's disheartening. I had looked for them to at least make the revenue number. I thought we would have a better mix driving that 29 cents earnings.
"I'm a little concerned about the broader manufacturing sector, that this may be a bit of a harbinger. I know that the aircraft numbers have been a little volatile. Now I have concerns for the rest of the manufacturing stocks.
"A lot of the strength that we were forecasting may have been a projection of an inventory restocking that didn't actually materialize."
MIKE LENHOFF, CHIEF STRATEGIST, BREWIN DOLPHIN, LONDON
"It (GE results) sounds pretty positive. It's consistent in the sense that earnings are coming better than expected. It's consistent that we are starting to see some growth, not just by cost cutting but we are starting to see some growth in operations.
"Although it's still early days, the results season is starting to look very promising and that is, in a way, supportive of where equity markets are going. What this suggests is that fundamental support is there as well."
DAVID BUIK, SENIOR PARTNER, BGC PARTNERS, LONDON
"I would describe the results as average. Earnings per share were 2 cents better but too many of the divisions missed. I think too much is attached to how much GE is a bellwether or a barometer of the market place. I'm much more interested in seeing what happens with Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs next week and then Microsoft, McDonalds and all the companies which make up the broader economy."
(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston, Nick Zieminski and RyanVlastelica in New York, Atul Prakash, Harpreet Bhal, Simon Falush and Dominic Lau in London; Editing by Derek Caney)
