General Electric surged Thursday for its best day since March 2009 after the company's earnings beat Wall Street's expectations. The long-embattled stock was up as much as 18 percent at the highs of the session, cracking the $10 mark for the first time since November.
Here's what three experts have to say about the GE turnaround:
• Harbor Advisory CIO Jack De Gan said GE needs to convince investors that the bottom is in and the future is stable: "I think what Larry Culp needs to do is give investors some confidence that we're at or near the bottom in the power business, and that he's got a strategy to carry the business through what could be a modest secular decline, but getting the margins that he needs to bring back some earnings and some cash flow."
• When it comes to that cash flow, CNBC's Jim Cramer has some questions. "I think that you're going to conclude that they need money. And where's the money going to come from?" asked Cramer. Despite questioning GE's cash flow and doubting that it will try to raise money by issuing more shares, Cramer thinks Culp's approach is on the right track. "I think the healthcare decision is a wise one, I think that Culp is really on target here, but I don't have a catalyst. I wonder if they're using JPMorgan for some of this business."
• Steve Grasso, director of institutional sales at Stuart Frankel and a CNBC "Fast Money" trader, believes that the tide is turning for GE and substantive improvements are on the horizon as a result of a change in philosophy brought about by CEO Larry Culp. "He's been given the benefit of the doubt," said Grasso of Culp, "and we haven't really seen that 'kitchen sink' approach that we've seen so many times before. I do think that this is the first step of, hopefully, many more positive steps for GE. You can't imagine it getting worse than it was a handful of months ago."
GE is up nearly 40 percent so far this year.
