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."

Very early Thursday morning, General Motors filed paperwork that pinned down a price range for its initial public offering (IPO). Three of the four owners of GM (the U.S., Canadian and Ontario governments, and a union health care trust) are set to sell 365 million shares of the automaker.

This number of shares is roughly a quarter of GM's outstanding stock. The triumvirate expects to sell the shares at a per-share price between $26 and $29. Should the shares sell in this range, the IPO would pull in roughly $10 billion for the trio. Again, if the shares do sell in this range -- then the U.S. government would reduce its stake in GM from 61% to slightly more than 40%. This scenario would net the U.S. Treasury nearly $7 billion.

The long awaited General Motors initial public offering is coming. According to the Financial Times, GM shares will be priced on Nov. 17 and begin trading the next day.

GM common shares are expected to be priced at between $26 and $29 per share. GM plans to raise between $9.5 billion and $10.6 billion. If demand is strong enough GM will issue more shares.

Sales for most major auto makers were down in September from August, as reported by MSNBC. Ford (F) was the standout with sales up 2%. Here are the numbers for the other companies:

• General Motors (GM) sales declined 3%.
• Chrysler was up less than 1%.
• Toyota (TM) fell less than 1%.
• Nissan (NSANY) was down 3%.

I found a rather interesting article from Wednesday's Washington Post that examined how the U.S. government could recover its investment in General Motors (GM). I decided to try this on a Price Is Right closest-without-going-over basis with my wife. Let's just say that we both missed the real number by quite a bit.

In order for the government to get back all of its $50 billion investment in GM, it must sell its stake at $134 per share. Does that figure seem a bit crazy? Blame it on the special inspector general of the government's bailout programs, that's who came up with the estimate.

In a Labor Day message to General Motors employees, his first companywide statement since becoming CEO, Dan Akerson pledged to cooperate with the United Auto Workers (UAW). "Coming from a union family, I know on a very personal level the good things that unions can do," said Akerson, GM's fourth chief executive since 2009.

The UAW will negotiate a new contract with GM next year, and it may attempt to restore losses it agreed to ahead of GM's bankruptcy. This is expected to be a challenge for Akerson, who has a reputation for telling subordinates to "stop complaining and start working."

General Motors is planning a $15 to $20 billion dollar IPO for mid August. However before this happens, GM wants to establish a $5 billion line of credit with major banks. So far Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C) and Morgan Stanley (MS) have agreed to a paltry $500 million.

GM's offer will be in the range of $15 to $20 billion. This IPO is filled with special conditions, a virtual minefield so to speak. Let's examine them:

Below are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage on BloggingStocks. Click through to the original posts for more details.

• Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) shares sold off after it posted a narrower Q1 net loss, but same-store sales rose.
• Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT) swung from a year-ago loss to a Q2 profit that was better than expected.
• Deere & Co. (DE) reported better-than-expected Q2 earnings and improved sales, and raised its full-year outlook.
• Dell Inc. (DELL) posted better-than-expected Q1 earnings, but the gross margin was disappointing, and shares fell.
• GameStop Corp. (GME) higher Q1 earnings beat consensus estimates but same-store sales declined.
• Gap Inc. (GPS) said its higher Q1 earnings beat expectations while revenue fell in line with estimates.

For the first time since 2007, General Motors announced a quarterly profit this morning for its first quarter.

The Detroit automaker reported that it earned $865 million during the quarter, and that revenues were up 40% to $31.8 billion. During the same period last year the company had a loss of $6 billion.

On Friday, General Motors announced that it will be changing ad agencies. The services of Campbell-Ewald, the company that brought the memorable "Like a Rock" campaign and which has been doing advertising since 1919, will no longer be needed. In its place, GM is hiring French advertising company Publicis Worldwide.

Given high fuel prices, the financial crisis, the economic recession and long-term labor and quality issues selling cars, right now it must be a bit tough to be GM. Even though the ad agency has a long history of selling cars, I certainly don't know its recent performance and respect GM's right to go with a competitor.

Earlier Wednesday morning, General Motors announced that it lost $4.3 billion in the first half of 2009. The automaker struggled as it tried to emerge from bankruptcy protection while repaying government loans. Of course, the downturn in GM's US sales didn't help much either. During the first half of 2009, GM recorded revenue of $557.5 billion. These totals were achieved as the company turned to fresh-start accounting, which gives companies the chance to completely revalue their assets following bankruptcy. By its own estimation, GM is the largest company to go through the fresh-start process.

General Motors will not be divesting itself of Hummer after all. The larger-than-life SUV brand has been on the auction block since GM's meltdown in 2009, and China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Company indicated Wednesday evening that it would be pulling out of the deal to purchase the automobile brand that came to symbolize America's obsession with excess.

So, after having the Saab deal collapse late last year (but then becoming successful in early 2010) and now the Hummer deal having evaporated, GM will have to wind down the Hummer business and obliterate the brand, while at the same time honoring Hummer warranties until the last factory warranty expires. It's very unlikely that any other entity will step up to the plate and show financial interest in Hummer. Come the end of this summer, if not before, the brand will be relegated to the history books.

General Motors has hired former CEO Fritz Henderson to serve as an adviser to the company. He'll be paid $59,090 per month, or $709,080 annualized. Is there anywhere, other than perhaps The Surreal Life: Recession Edition, where Henderson could earn that much money?

In exchange for his $59,090, Mr. Henderson will work about 20 hours per month, according to the SEC filing announcing the hiring: $2,954.50 per hour.

"This is an agreement to provide consulting to the company on international operations, an area where Fritz has unrivaled expertise," GM spokesman Chris Preuss told Bloomberg.

Who's ready for some football? The Super Bowl is this weekend, and you know what that means -- commercials that we will all be talking about on Monday morning. In fact, we all know someone who says they watch the game for the commercials.

CBS announced earlier this week that it sold out all the in-game spots, but a few pre- and post-game spots remained. How much money did this make for CBS (CBS)? Roughly $200 million, and that is a low-end estimate. We all know why advertisers flock to the Super Bowl, as more than 98.7 million viewers tuned in last year. No matter who is in the Super Bowl, people watch the game and the commercials -- and eventually they may buy the products from the ads.

The USA Today's DriveOn blog considers the possibility of what would appear to be the mother of all conspiracies: "Are the Obama administration and Rust Belt members of Congress taking political advantage of Toyota to bolster the fortunes of Detroit automakers?"

The blog post continues:

The unprecedented move to keep Toyota from selling models under recall could ve (sic) viewed as economic punishment, rather than consumer protection. Neither LaHood nor Toyota think that owners of cars covered by the recall should stop driving them. The cars may be too potentially dangerous to be sold, but they are fine to drive as long as you're aware of telltale warning signs that they may try to roar off on their own. Imagine a drug recall where the government stops sales in stores, but doesn't tell people to throw away the bottles in their medicine cabinets.