US Dollar Weekly Chart with Commitments of Traders

GE Slashes Dividend For the First Time Since 1938 to Preserve Capital

GE cut their dividend by a whoppoing 68% to preserve capital in 'uncertain markets.' The company also said that there are no plans to raise additional capital and dilute common shareholders, with the same confidence which they had in January when Jeff Immelt said that they would not cut the dividend in 2009.

Here is a February 5, 2009 video interview with Jeff Immelt:

Immelt Says Important for GE Not to Cut Divident in 2009

The Wall Street Journal interviewer provides an example of an interview from the prior March in which Jeff Immelt was optimistic about earnings and then shortly thereafter "BAM! A big miss. Does this mean you and your guys don't know what's going on?"

Well, BAM again.

Reuters
GE cuts quarterly dividend to protect liquidity
Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:50pm EST

BOSTON (Reuters) - General Electric Co plans to cut its quarterly dividend to 10 cents a share starting in the second half of 2009, a move that it said would provide it with more "flexibility" in the face of a recession.

The U.S. conglomerate said it had no plans to raise additional equity, and that reducing its dividend from 31 cents a share would save it about $9 billion a year.

The news had been widely expected on Wall Street even prior to GE's statement earlier this month that its board would re-evaluate the payout....

"We have determined that reducing the dividend ... is a prudent measure to further enhance our balance sheet and provide us with additional flexibility," said Chief Executive Jeff Immelt in a statement.

As recently as January, Immelt had defended the dividend. In November, the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company said it planned to pay the 31-cent quarterly dividend through 2009.

Still, troubles at its GE Capital finance unit had led some investors to wonder whether keeping the dividend was a good idea....

SP Futures Hourly Chart at 1:30

GDP Number Far Worse Than Expected by Most Economists (But Not Here)

The Fourth Quarter GDP number came in at a negative 6.2% versus the original negative 3.8 percent announcement earlier this year.

That is not a big adjustment. It is a HUGE adjustment. That first number was so obviously cooked by a high side inventories estimate and a lowball chain deflator that it was a knee-slapping howler to anyone who is following this economy closely.

This decline did not happen overnight. It is merely being reported that way.

There should be little doubt in most people's minds that Bernanke, Greenspan, Paulson, and many in the Bush Administration were deceiving us about the state of the economy, for years, almost routinely as a matter of course.

That is important to understand. This was no act of God, no hurricane or meteor strike. And a lot of folks on Wall Street and in Washington playing dumb now knew what was coming. You can decide their motives for yourself, but fear and greed should be high on the top of your list.

The economy has been rotten for a long time, since at least 2001 if not before, and as it worsened more and more money was taken off the table by the Bush Administration and their corporate cronies through no bid contracts and welfare for the wealthy. Coats of paint were slapped over the growing imbalances, market manipulation, malinvestment, fraud and corruption.

Remember that. Don't let it go. Because as sure as the sun will rise, these jokers will be back in business given half the chance. They are shameless, greedy beyond all reason, and persistent. The fiscal responsibility being preached now by the Republican minority is repulsive hypocrisy.

That is why it is so disappointing to see what looks like business as usual from the Obama Administration. Larry Summers appears to be a tragic choice as chief economic advisor. And Tim Geithner, while a capable fellow, is not a thinker, but a doer, an implementer, and a disciple of the fellows that caused this mess.

What to do? Let them know now we expect reform. Don't fall for the same old rhetoric from the 'conservative' think thanks and paid pundits who misled you for the past eight years. They are not conservatives. They are jackals who play on your emotions. And let's not accept a new batch of paid pundits and clever deceivers either. But don't give up and pull over a blanket of cynicism.

Typically Americans will give a new president like Obama 100 days to get his bearings and deal with a tidal wave of problems that he did not create. We do not expect him to fix them, but we want to see a decent start in the right direction. We gave Bush far too much allowance, primarily because of 911 which his handlers played for all it was worth.

So far, with some noted exceptions in non-financials, we the people have not seen what we voted for last November.

President Obama recently said that Wall Street reform is coming, but it will take time.

Mr. President, you may not have the leisure to show us that you know what needs to be done. You are riding a high tide of bipartisan support in the people who voted for you. Once you lose them it will be very difficult to get them back.

We must demand action from the Congress and the Administration who we recently put in place through the elections to clean this mess up and then change the system that delivered it.

Contact the White House

Contact Your Senator

We do not want fewer, bigger banks exacting a fee on every commericial transaction in this country.

1. Bring back Glass-Steagall.

2. Clean up the derivatives market, starting with J.P. Morgan and their 90 Trillion dollar positions.

3. Enforce the various anti-trust laws, enacting new ones where necessary, and break up the media and banking conglomerates.

4. Enact aggregate position limits in all commodity markets and transparency with immediate disclosure of all position over 5% in any market.

5. Effective restrictions and enforcement of naked short selling, price manipulation, reinstatement of the 'uptick rule,' the prohibition of regulated banks from engaging in any speculative markets either for themselves or as agents, and usury laws and regulation of all interstate financial transactions at the national level.

And for the sake of the country, establish a vision, a model, of what the system should look like in accord with the Constitution. And then strike out for it, as painful as that may be, and stop this management by crisis.


Bloomberg
U.S. Economy Shrank 6.2% Last Quarter, Most Since ’82
By Timothy R. Homan

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy shrank in the fourth quarter at a faster pace than previously estimated as consumer spending plunged, companies cut inventories and exports sank.

Gross domestic product contracted at a 6.2 percent annual pace from October through December, more than economists anticipated and the most since 1982, according to revised figures from the Commerce Department today in Washington. Consumer spending, which comprises about 70 percent of the economy, declined at the fastest pace in almost three decades.

The recession is forecast to persist at least through the first half of this year as job losses mount and purchases plummet. The Obama administration’s attempts to break the grip of the worst financial crisis in 70 years are unlikely to bring immediate relief as companies from General Motors Corp. to JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut payrolls.

“There has been no evidence that the pace of decline is slowing at all, there are other shoes waiting to drop,” Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Inc. in Boston, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “There is a chance that the stimulus package will kick in” in the middle of this year, he said.