Today was just one of those solid days. It seems that regulation over non-financial firms being looser is a huge relief. Even a wider than expected seasonal weekly jobless claims report did not hurt the market. Yesterday we had a potential huge technical event in oil prices, but the news today remedied that. Oil was up almost $4.00 at over $67.00 late in the day. We even had two IPOs trading today.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,152.19 +81.47 (0.90%)
S&P 500 986.40 +11.25 (1.15%)
Nasdaq 1,984.30 +16.54 (0.84%)

Top Analyst Calls

I estimate that General Electric Company (NYSE: GE)'s GE Money segment is worth between $46 billion and $48.9 billion -- down 10.6% at the high end -- compared to last July's range of $29.6 billion to $54.7 billion.

GE Money provides financial services to consumers and retailers in 50 countries. GE Money offers private-label credit cards; personal loans; bank cards; auto loans and leases; mortgages; corporate travel and purchasing cards; debt consolidation; home equity loans; deposit and other savings products, and credit insurance.

GE Money had a great 2007. Its 2007 revenues and net earnings increased 26% and 31%, respectively, compared with 2006. Revenues in 2007 included $0.4 billion from acquisitions. Revenues in 2007 also increased $4.8 billion as a result of organic revenue growth ($3.5 billion) and the weaker U.S. dollar ($1.4 billion).

Next Tuesday I am scheduled to meet with General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin to discuss GE's performance and prospects. This meeting came at the company's initiation.

As a GE shareholder I have not been thrilled with the performance of the stock. Since September 7, 2001 when current CEO Jeff Immelt took over, the stock has risen 3% from $39.60, compared to a 40% increase in the S&P 500. Moreover, on the basis of its Price/Earnings to Growth (PEG) ratio of 1.5 -- based on a P/E of 19.5 and earnings forecast to grow 13% to $2.50 in 2008 -- GE looks somewhat overvalued to me.

So here are some questions I plan to ask:

• Since the current GE CEO took over, GE stock is up 3%, compared to a 40% increase in the S&P 500. Why has GE stock underperformed this average?
• GE stock has risen 23% in the last year, however, it trades at a PEG of 1.5 which makes it a bit expensive. Why should investors buy GE stock now?
• Since the Healthcare, Industrial and NBC Universal segments all saw revenues fall in the first half with relatively weak profit performance, why doesn't GE sell these businesses and invest the proceeds to increase its market share in the more financially successful Infrastructure and Commercial Finance units?
• If GE chooses to stay in Healthcare how will it offset the negative impact of the federal government's decision to cut reimbursements to nonhospital imaging centers?
• Under Jack Welch, GE's philosophy was to only be in businesses in which it could be #1 or #2. Recently NBC was ranked the 4th most watched network. Will GE sell NBC? If not, why is GE keeping NBC? How does NBC's coordination with other GE divisions increase GE's overall revenues or lower its costs?
• How vulnerable is the GE Money unit to an increase in consumer loan defaults? Is GE Money likely to experience accelerated revenue and profit growth in 2008 or slower growth? Why?
• What impact would a 10% decline in the dollar have on GE's Earnings Per Share (EPS)?
• What other external factors -- such as an increase in interest rates or a rise in energy prices -- represent the biggest risks to GE's EPS? How do you quantify those risks?

Please let me know which ones you'd like to add to the list.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns General Electric stock.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) reported very strong earnings last week of $0.44 per share, versus $0.40 for the same quarter last year. This company is so large and so diverse that it has been compared to herding cats. So many moving parts and somewhat dependent on global growth as opposed to just United States growth. CEO Jeffrey Immelt has stated the goal to grow earnings at 2-3 times the global GDP -- that's global!!

General Electric's stock price is sitting right at the mid-point of its 52-week range. At Friday's closing price of $35.38, it's $3 above the 52-week low, and $3 above the 52-week high. If GE continues to maintain double-digit percentage earnings growth, investors will begin to chase the shares back up to the high side of the 52-week range. Immelt has pressured his multiple businesses to perform and perform now.

General Electric is focused more on building existing businesses rather than expanding through acquisitions or joint ventures. GE will focus this year and next on the lucrative finance units. GE Capital is the goose that lays the golden egg; it's predictable and fairly high margin. Also, GE Capital and its subsidiaries are global in reach and scope. The commercial finance division is making a strategic and profitable acquisition in Japan. It's all about the margins.

GE pays a healthy and handsome dividend of $1.12, representing a 3.2% current yield. Investors look to GE for its current yield, but if GE can maintain a steady 10% growth rate for revenues and earnings, the shares will only accelerate from here.

Many institutional investors think GE is a bit undervalued at this price level, due to the expected margins gains from GE focuses on the capital lending business. They are probably correct and GE is a buy here for conservative growth accounts.

Georges Yared is the CIO of Yared Investment Research.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) posted an in-line first quarter. As expected, GE Infrastructure did well and NBC Universal did poorly. The company also was hurt by the meltdown in subprime mortgages.

8:30-- Introductions

Jeff Immelt:

The broad strength of GE, lead by. If you at our inf business, we are in the very early phase where we have high visibility, broad technology, increasing backlogs. We are in the first inning of a nine inning game in Inf. What you saw in this quarter is repeatably.

Had a couple of speed bumps. WMC. health care. Despite those bumps , we delivered good quality earnings. We are a safe..going to deliver 10 to .12. The environment that we see today. We think the global markets are good, capex is leveling, Housing is a "challenge."

Emerging markets are very strong, Inf investments continue. Our env programs. The margin environment is as expected. Driving pricing in long-cycle business.We're well positioned globally. our pricing is ahead of inflation.

We've got a st. The economy is what we expected. We feel really good on how the company is position.

John Rice-Infrastructure.

We saw strength in all of our business. took orders for 33 gas turbines, many of them were international. Oil and gas business had strong orders. "We're starting to see more action in the United States in terms of inquiries>" All in all the business is very strong.

Keith Sherin, CFO

The headline .23.6 bln in orders.

The absolute level of orders continues to be extremely strong. The future outlook continues to be very strong.

The transportation outlook for the year is fantastic. Backlog is up 30 percent from a year ago. When we look for. The current outlook is 20 percent increase for orders of major equipment. Total orders are expected to be up 15 percent in the second quarter.

General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) ended that day at $35.61, up 19 cents or 0.54% from its close yesterday. GE recently released that it is getting into helping Isotoner refinance (the gloves company), in a $145 million deal.

Of interest to shareholders is GE's 2007 Annual Meeting of Shareowners. This year it will be held April 25 in Greenville, South Carolina. GE will be talking about the diversity and strength of the conglomerate there.

Interested in alternative energy? The Motley Fool's Paul Elliott makes a case for buying GE as a way to get involved in diversified energies, not just the traditional oil and gas. GE is one of the larger alternative energy investors in the world, and although it sounds counter-intuitive, would be a great way to invest in that long term outlook on energy if one were interested. Maybe, but investing directly in an alternative energy company would free you of the general sluggishness that GE seems to suffer as well, for better or worse. Are any readers in GE for the alternative energy investment out there?

My inability to get the webcast to work properly on my machine led to no liveblogging of today's live webcast of GE's CEO talking about the company, but you can find the webcast up at the company's investor relations site still.

Much like Douglas Adam's riffs on how freaking huge space is in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm always struck by how large GE is, and nothing hammers that home more than listening to CEO Jeff Immelt spend an hour giving an overview of where the conglomerate stands today and where he sees it headed.

Jeff reaffirmed that GE has "never been in better shape" and went on to emphasize what he called the company's 'broadness' and the fact that is has positioned itself to rise on growth from several 'tailwinds,' which was the word he used for trends that GE was trying to harness for growth. Jeff said they continued to expect a $1.94-$2.02 earnings per share, as well as good growth throughout the company. Jeff made the point that throughout the last few years GE has invested in a lot of fundamental building of the platforms for technology and practices that will begin to pay off in a big way starting the next couple of years.

Some areas that Jeff saw GE harnessing right now: