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Published in Business and Finance on Thursday, January 22nd 2009 at 12:32 GMT, Last Modified on 2009-01-22 12:32:32 by Market Wire

CINCINNATI--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Before the opening bell tomorrow morning, blue-chip conglomerate General Electric (NYSE: GE) is slated to step into the limelight and release its quarterly earnings report. Wall Street analysts are currently expecting a profit of 37 cents per share, down sharply from last year's earnings of 68 cents per share. Historically, GE has matched these expectations in 3 of the past 4 reporting periods, missing by 13.73% in the quarter ending in March 2008, according to Zacks.
However, the brokerage bunch is still downwardly adjusting its expectations, as my colleague Colleen King reported yesterday. Specifically, King noted that "Goldman Sachs and Oppenheimer lowered their earning estimates for GE's fourth quarter to at or near the low end of GE's guidance range of 36 cents to 45 cents a share." Furthermore, UBS placed the shares on a short-term "sell" status, citing a risk to the company's dividend and top-tier credit rating.
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