Pam and Russ Martens — Removal of GE from the Dow Looks Suspiciously Like Citigroup’s Exit

General Electric Co. (GE) will be unceremoniously sacked from the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 26, it was announced yesterday by the S&P Dow Jones Indices folks. GE was one of the original 12 companies in the index when it was created in 1896. The Dow now consists of 30 companies and GE has been in the index continuously since 1907.

Curiously, GE – an industrial giant that makes highly sophisticated commercial jet engines for Boeing and turbines for power plants among numerous other lines of business – will be replaced in the Dow by a retail drugstore chain, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)....

Wall Street On Parade
Removal of GE from the Dow Looks Suspiciously Like Citigroup’s Exit
Pam Martens and Russ Martens

GE finally dumps Jack Welch's poisonous legacy and the stock surges

General Electric (NYSE:GE)

On a day that saw industrial giant, General Electric, dump the last remaining legacy of Jack Welch the stock soared. No surprise.

GE finally dumped its financial business; a business built up by Jack Welch and a business that almost sank the company. Jeff Immelt did something he should have done a long time ago. That's because Welch's GE Capital was nothing more than an accounting scam that almost wrecked the firm founded by Thomas Edison.

Now GE can go on doing what it does best: making real stuff. Everyone knows it for its home appliances: washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, ranges and such. In addition, the company makes sophisticated industrial products like jet engines, medical imaging machines and power generation equipment. Things the world needs. What it doesn't need is any more accounting frauds.

I never understood all the adulation of Jack Welch. He was like the God of CEO's. Still is, to many. I met him many times when I was at Fox News and while he was a likable guy, I never thought he was very smart. His economic views were totally out of paradigm. He was a hard money, fiscal austerity, ideologue; a member of the club of corporate elites who succeed in spite of themselves or who rely on tricks, gimmicks or bending the system, as most of finance did, with its accounting scams.

Disclosure: I own GE stock. Good riddance Jack Welch and your legacy.