General Electric shares were under pressure Tuesday after longtime J.P. Morgan analyst Stephen Tusa said to avoid the stock into earnings later this month.
"We think the recent stock move is built upon an expectation of more certainty in the path forward," Tusa wrote in a note. The stock has soared more than 30 percent from its infamous $6.66 level hit last month. "If we don't get [something] tangible ... it will reinforce the bear case that there is no concrete silver bullet plan."
The note comes a day after William Blair said the end of the apocalypse for the company whose stock has been bludgeoned over the last two years is finally here.
Despite the mixed messages on Wall Street, at least one trader thinks there are gains to be had over the next year.
On Monday, an options trader made a large bet that GE would be back above $10 per share by the beginning of next year. Specifically, that trader bought 11,000 January 2020 expiration 10-calls for $1.23 per contract. Since each options contract accounts for 100 shares of stock, this is a $1.35 million wager that GE will rise above $11.23, or a 27 percent rally, by January 2020.
Dan Nathan of Risk Reversal Advisors wasn't quite as bullish as that trader, saying that even though good news might be on the way for GE, positivity will inspire longtime holders to exit the stock rather than hold onto it.
"There's still an awful lot of technical resistance [on this stock]. Almost anybody who did not buy this stock in the last couple of weeks is down money, and they're going to be looking for opportunities to get out, at some point, with a little liquidity on any good news," Nathan said Monday on CNBC's "Fast Money."
"It's a virtuous cycle," Karen Finerman, president of Metropolitan Capital, said on "Fast Money." "As the stock trades higher, people are going to feel more confident in the name, it will be easier to roll over debt that they have. So, I have some 2020 leaps, I think there's a reasonable shot that they do it."
Tim Seymour, chief investment officer at Seymour Asset Management, also said the end of a long, continuous sell-off is probably over for GE. "I just think the trading in this stock has gotten to a place where, really, you've exhausted the active sellers," he said on "Fast Money."
Shares of GE were down more than 2 percent midafternoon Tuesday.
