GM director Patricia F. Russo (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images for Women’s Forum of New York)
Monica Schipper / Getty Images
General Motors stock has tumbled in 2022, and director Patricia Russo scooped up shares of the auto giant.
GM (ticker: GM) stock came off a hot year, surging 41% in 2021, compared with a 27% rise in the S&P 500 index. This year, shares are down 17% while the index has slipped 9%. Unlike rival Ford Motor (F), GM hasn’t resumed paying its dividend, which it suspended in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, both GM and Ford have seen a recent wave of analyst downgrades, and one observer thinks that Tesla (TSLA) could soon be bigger than GM and Ford combined.
Russo paid $304,000 on Feb. 10 for 6,000 GM shares, a per share average price of $50.61, according to a form she filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Russo, who is also chair of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), now owns 31,000 GM shares.
Russo didn’t respond to a request for comment made through GM. Russo’s most recent purchase of GM stock on the open market was in May 2020, when she paid $295,000 for 12,700 shares, an average price of $23.18 each.
After GM reported a strong fourth quarter earlier this month, Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy trimmed estimates and lowered the target price to $75 from $78, but maintained an Outperform rating. Levy noted the company’s progress in electric vehicles. “[W]hile we acknowledge GM will ultimately need to put up healthy EV sales volume to truly show it is making the EV transition, we appreciate the steps GM is taking.”
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
