GE Stock takes a dive surrounding bad news report from fraud whistleblower auditor Harry Markopolos
Markopolos declared war on GE this week, but he lacks firepower. He may lose credibility due to his overly salacious attacks this week. Comparing GE to Enron, Madoff and Worldcom does not make a rational analogy. While we are likely to find much truth in what Markopolos says about GE's financial disclosure shortcomings, Harry's overt hostility and badmouthing crosses the line from neutral, falling into an overt attempt to damage the company for Harry's own lucrative financial gain. That behavior will prove to cause a backlash against Markopolos in this case.
Harry's previous foes were paper-based fly-by-nights, while GE is a time-tested, pressure forged, heavy-duty high-tech manufacturer of extreme diversity across several different industries.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/08/15/general-electric-financial-whistleblower-allegations-jim-cramer.html
GE makes many of the largest and most expensive items that America uses, including Boeing jet aircraft engines and the most advanced medical imaging devices such as MRI. $38 billion in potential irregularities does not necessarily destroy a multi-trillion dollar company with $120 billion in annual revenue. GE's enormous finances are genuinely difficult to understand, even for a forensic accountant and regulators. Without a simple, smoking gun showing objectively false statements, alleged unlawful activities cannot be proven to a judge and jury. GE will need to be more careful with its books, but will brilliantly counter this attack by Harry Markopolos with massive reinforcements: armies of accountants, battalions of attorneys, regiments of Wall Street investors / analysts and brigades of allies in the federal government.
Update: Max Kaiser called the GE financial situation an exit scam fraud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam
In 2009 the SEC https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-178.htm investigated GE and charged GE with fraud https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/20/investing/general-electric-immelt-what-went-wrong/index.html
In 2017, CNN Business called GE a train wreck https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/20/investing/general-electric-immelt-what-went-wrong/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/08/16/nytimes-jim-stewart-on-ge-this-is-not-enron.html
Despite its overall strength, the long-term chart does not look very promising for GE stock. The high and low long term peaks are declining, so I see no reason to own it until something major improves with the business model.