What a difference a year makes. General Motors made a dramatic turnaround from a $1.2 billion loss a year ago to a profit of $2 billion in the third quarter, The Wall Street Journal reported. Revenue grew by 21% to $34 billion in the quarter. Last year, GM lost 73 cents per share.

This encouraging profit report comes just in time for GM's stock offering, which is due in the next few weeks. CEO Daniel Akerson said in a conference call, in WSJ's words, that "GM is still losing money in Europe and must improve the way its vehicles are marketed in its core North American market."

Good News! General Motors reported a quarterly profit of $1.3 billion, up from $865 million in Q1. GM's profit report is the best since 2004. Revenue came in at $33.2 billion, up from $31.5 billion in Q1. Since GM is still a private company, It did not release forecasts for the next quarter.

The good news continues. GM reported a 47% surge in global production. North American factories are operating at 93% of capacity.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) saw a profitable Q2 period when it reported results yesterday, blowing past analyst estimates and recording its third straight profitable quarter. What made such a turnaround happen? It was not U.S. sales (which dropped from a revenue standpoint), but overseas sales bolstered GM's Q2 sales in excellent fashion.

So, that begs the question: what is going on with the automaker's sales in the U.S. right now? Are incentives working? Is GM having unexpected issues with the UAW? How much more can it cut costs in the U.S. region to ensure it can strive to make sure consistent profitability occurs in its home market?

Some of those questions may be asked today as GM reports its July U.S. sales results, which will probably have quite a bit more somber tone than the great quarter the automaker just reported on yesterday. We'll see. Remember to use the "Refresh" key on your web browser to see all the updates below, which will happen ever few minutes. All times below are in EST.

Here in a few minutes, General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) will report its second-quarter earnings amid what seems to be stronger overseas sales and truck sales in the U.S. (from the indications given monthly). Will GM follow Ford's lead and actually report a profit for Q2? If so, it'll be because of employee-related charges more than product margins and sales.

It will be hard to have as bad a quarter as a year ago, when the then-largest automaker reported a loss of over $3 billion due to massive restructuring charges. The housing market is still in the doldrums and gas is still at $2.70+ a gallon in many places across the U.S. Will these two factors hurt GM yet again?

Another area to watch even with expected strong truck sales is what the all-new Toyota Tundra full-size pickup is doing to GM's overall truck business. The Tundra is asked about during each monthly conference call GM holds to discuss its monthly U.S. sales results. The automaker continues to answer with elusiveness the Tundra's effect to one of GM's largest-margin product categories. Perhaps Q2 numbers will tell us once and for all. Remember to use the "Refresh" key in your web browser to see all the updates below (every few minutes). All times below are in EST.

Tomorrow morning, General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) will report its second-quarter earnings amid what seems to be stronger overseas sales and truck sales in the U.S. (from the indications given monthly). Will GM follow Ford's lead and actually report a profit for Q2? If so, it'll be because of employee-related charges more than product margins and sales.

It will be hard to have as bad a quarter as a year ago, when the then-largest automaker reported a loss of over $3 billion due to massive restructuring charges. The housing market is still in the doldrums and gas is still at $2.70+ a gallon in many places across the U.S. Will these two factors hurt GM yet again?

Another area to watch even with expected strong truck sales is what the all-new Toyota Tundra full-size pickup is doing to GM's overall truck business. The Tundra is asked about during each monthly conference call GM holds to discuss its monthly U.S. sales results. The automaker continues to answer with elusiveness the Tundra's effect to one of GM's largest-margin product categories. Perhaps Q2 numbers will tell us once and for all.

Stay tuned to BloggingStocks tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. EDT for live coverage of the Q2 results, which will be released before the market opens tomorrow.

Here we are waiting for the monthly General Motors U.S. sales result conference call for June. With Ford having some product mix changes this summer so far, are the same things set for GM to have the same? The largest automaker in the U.S. has made strides in the media recently regarding its push for more alternative-fuel and electric-powered vehicles. Perhaps it does see that gas-guzzling SUVs are, well, quite a bit less popular than they used to be.

With that, here we go. Paul Ballew takes the helm and we're starting. Remember to use the "Refresh" key to refresh this liveblog every few minutes. All times below are in EST.

2:00pm -- Ballew starts by saying that June was "challenging" for the auto industry as a whole, and that this June was very much like last year's June (and for the Q2 period as well).

2:05pm -- 16.1 million units will be projected sold (all automakers included) for the rolling annual period, with about 90% of the auto industry having June's final results in affecting June's actual number. This would make a drop of about 200,000 vehicles from last year.