Why You Should Pull the Trigger on General Electric Company Stock

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GE stock - Why You Should Pull the Trigger on General Electric Company Stock

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General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) stock has been rallying for the past couple of days. However, GE stock can rise much further, driven by several potent positive catalysts, including higher oil prices, increased oil drilling in the U.S., powerful partnerships, the electric car revolution and an attractive valuation.

Brent oil prices have risen above $70 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate oil prices surpassed $65 per barrel, representing multi-month highs “last seen in late February,” as Reuters noted.

A number of factors have been responsible for the rally, including increased Middle East tensions, the weakness of the U.S. dollar, and a deal to restrict supplies that was made between OPEC countries and Russia.  All of those factors are likely to keep oil prices elevated for the near to medium terms, benefiting GE’s Baker Hughes energy services unit.

Additionally, as I’ve noted in the past, Baker Hughes, GE and GE stock should benefit from President Trump’s decision to open more areas of the U.S., both onshore and offshore, to oil drilling. The combination of higher oil prices and President Trump’s actions should greatly improve Baker Hughes’ business going forward.

Meanwhile, GE has partnered with Boeing Co (NYSE: BA) to develop engines for the latter company’s planes. Demand for Boeing planes is growing quickly in China and elsewhere in Asia, creating a tremendous opportunity for General Electric.

Also likely to move the needle for GE is its partnership with Saudi Arabia in general and the giant Saudi Arabian energy company Aramco in particular. Saudi Arabia is clearly looking to shower a tremendous amount of money on GE in order to help modernize the kingdom.

The country is going to use GE’s help and products in areas ranging from digitizing Aramco, to improving its mineral mining processes, to repairing its turbines.

As the Saudi and U.S. governments become closer under the leadership of the modernizing, pro-American Prince Salman and the very pro-Saudi President Trump, the Saudis will naturally look to GE for more and more of these types of projects.

Furthermore, as I’ve written in the past, GE “could very well get a boost from the increased popularity of electric cars.”

Basically, as I pointed out previously,  “it turns out that the increased use of electric cars will, in certain neighborhoods, require upgrades to grids. GE could benefit by selling equipment used in such upgrades.” And GE will be able to sell more products to electric utilities as the utilities obtain more money by selling electricity used to power electric cars.

Attractive Valuation for GE Stock

Finally, despite the recent rally of GE stock, the valuation of GE stock remains quite low. The stock’s price-to-sales ratio is below 1, and its forward price-to-earnings ratio is under 13.

In fact, the valuation of GE stock is so low that the greatest value investor of them all, Warren Buffet, is rumored to be interested in the name. Could Buffet pull the trigger on GE stock?

I’m not sure. But even if the rumor about the Oracle of Omaha’s interest in the company turns out to be totally false, GE stock still have enough positive catalysts, including rising oil prices, powerful partnerships and an attractive valuation, to rise significantly above current levels. As a result, investors should pull the trigger on GE stock here, even if Buffet stays on the sidelines.

As of this writing, Larry Ramer did not have any positions in any of the aforementioned stocks.   

Larry Ramer has conducted research and written articles on U.S. stocks for 15 years. He has been employed by The Fly and Israel’s largest business newspaper, Globes. Larry began writing columns for InvestorPlace in 2015. Among his highly successful, contrarian picks have been SMCI, INTC, and MGM. You can reach him on Stocktwits at @larryramer.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2018/03/why-you-should-pull-the-trigger-on-general-electric-stock/.

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