Markets

GE shares rebound from lower open even after the blue chip gets booted from the Dow

Key Points
  • Nicholas Heymann at William Blair believes GE stock should be trading between $14 and $21, depending on earnings.
  • GE will be replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance on the Dow Jones industrial average prior to the open on June 26.
  • Deutsche Bank's John Inch had warned back in January that GE would likely be kicked out of the Dow this year.
General Electric to leave the Dow Jones index
VIDEO4:0904:09
General Electric to leave the Dow Jones index

General Electric shares rebound from a lower open Wednesday, a day after news that the last original Dow component was being dropped from the blue-chip index.

Shares of GE, which has been in the Dow continuously since November 1907, sank 1.4 percent at the open on Wall Street. But in early trading, they climbed out of that hole.

The stock closed at $12.95 on Tuesday, ahead of the announcement that GE will be replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance on the Dow Jones industrial average prior to the open on June 26.

GE, with a market cap of more than $112 billion, has seen its shares fall more than 55 percent over the past year, on investors' concern about the value of GE's businesses declining.

John Flannery, chairman and CEO of GE, is in the midst of an aggressive turnaround plan and restructuring.

Flannery replaced GE chief executive Jeff Immelt in the latter half of 2017. Immelt's departure capped a rocky 16-year run that saw GE stock lose about 38 percent of its value.

Nicholas Heymann, a multi-industry analyst William Blair & Co., told CNBC he believes GE's stock should be trading between $14 and $21, depending on earnings.

"Asset sales are going to come through," Heymann said in a Wednesday "Squawk Box" interview, adding the industrial giant is "obviously" going through a transition phase.

Heymann said, "There's been serial capital misallocation here for a long time," since 2004 in the early years of Immelt, who took over at GE in 2001 from longtime boss Jack Welch.

Late Tuesday on CNBC, shortly after the Dow news, ex-General Electric transportation CEO Bob Nardelli predicted more pain ahead at GE.

"Flannery has his work cut out for him. He's been there a year now, and I think time is not a friend when you're dealing with the challenges that he's facing," Nardelli said on "Fast Money."

Back in January, Deutsche Bank's John Inch had warned that GE would likely be dropped from the Dow this year and that such a move would hurt its shares.

"We believe headline risk to be the most significant risk factor if GE were to be dropped from the Dow — potentially amplified by GE's high mix of retail investors (roughly 40% of GE's common stock is held by retail investors)," Inch wrote at the time.

—CNBC's Angelica LaVito contributed to this report.