General Motors Falls to 76-Year
Low After Executives Sell Stock

GM declined 29 cents, or 20 percent, to $1.15 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares touched $1.09 earlier today, the lowest since April 22, 1933, adjusted for splits and distributions, said Bryan Taylor, chief economist at Global Financial Data in Los Angeles.

“The market is saying bankruptcy is probably what’s going to happen,” said Kevin Tynan, an analyst at Argus Research in New York with a “sell” rating on the shares. “As soon as they took money from Treasury, in my mind, it was a dollar stock.”

GM Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson said yesterday that bankruptcy is more probable than the largest U.S. automaker previously thought. In regulatory filings after the close of regular NYSE trading yesterday, the company disclosed that the executives sold their shares.

Julie Gibson, a GM spokeswoman, said today that the Detroit-based company doesn’t comment about its share price.

Gibson said yesterday that the executives’ sales occurred during a window when such transactions are allowed, after GM’s quarterly earnings report on May 7. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, North America President Troy Clarke, Vice Chairman Thomas Stephens and Group Vice Presidents Gary Cowger, Carl-Peter Forster and Ralph Szygenda sold shares, according to the filings.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katie Merx in Southfield, Michigan at kmerx @ bloomberg.net

Retrun from General Motors to Financial Markets

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