Why GE Stock Still Looks Like a Good Play for Long-Term Investors

The closure of a recent deal will give General Electric (NYSE:GE) the liquidity it needs to ride out the coronavirus crisis without selling additional shares of GE stock.Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com Meanwhile, its Aviation unit will struggle in the short-term but rebound over the longer term, and its Power and Renewables units should also perform very well in 2021 and beyond.On March 31, GE closed the sale of its biopharma unit to Danaher (NYSE:DHR). GE is expected to obtain net proceeds of $20 billion from the deal. That's a lot of money, even for a huge conglomerate like GE.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsGE CEO Larry Culp hinted that the deal would likely enable the company to weather the storm."With regard to our financial position, our company is sound," he said, adding that the duration of the crisis was unknown. * 7 Telecom Stocks That Are Worth a Close Look But he subsequently added that the Biopharma deal would help the company sure up its financial position. He called the advancement of the deal "crucial."Reading between the lines, I think Culp was saying that, as long as the deal goes through, the company does not have to worry too much about its liquidity. The Aviation Unit Will Recover Over the Longer TermThe government's top experts are now acknowledging a hypothesis I've long held: that the coronavirus is seasonal, while its spread is likely to ease tremendously as the weather warms.Experts now expect the country's fatalities from the virus to number 80,000-200,000, way down from a previous estimate, even with mass closures, of 475,000. Antibody tests that will identify those who are less likely to catch coronavirus are expected to be released soon and the disease's spread in the U.S. is expected to peak in the second week of April.Taken together, I believe air travel will begin to rebound meaningfully at some point in May before accelerating greatly in June.A similar scenario will likely play out across most of the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, the vast majority of the world's wealth is concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere.So as plane travel rebounds in the hemisphere, most of the world's largest airlines will likely gain enough confidence to resume buying planes in bulk, enabling GE's Aviation unit to resume its status as a meaningful profit generator and the company's crown jewel.And although coronavirus could rear its ugly head again in the fall, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top disease expert, recently said that multiple factors, including an expedited vaccine, will leave us much better equipped to deal with the virus then than we were at the beginning of this year. Consequently, I don't expect the virus to reduce air travel very much again. The Power and Renewables Units Still Look StrongAfter the coronavirus crisis is over, the trends lifting electricity demand are likely to remain very much intact. Specifically, the proliferation of electric cars and data centers will probably continue to greatly increase electricity demand.Meanwhile, even if oil prices remain extremely low, oil is unlikely to replace natural gas as a generator of electricity on a large scale. That's because oil prices have historically been very volatile, and it has typically not been used to generate a great deal of electricity. Further, natural gas is also extremely cheap, and it's much cleaner and has a significantly lower carbon footprint than oil.Speaking of carbon footprints, lowering carbon outputs is likely to become a high priority for much of the world again after the coronavirus subsides. That, along with the extension of the tax credit for wind energy in the U.S., should be very positive for GE's Renewables unit.Within the next couple of years, GE's Power and Renewables businesses, which together burned $2,5 billion of cash in 2019, will start generating positive free cash flow, a Seeking Alpha columnist contended recently. The Bottom Line on GE StockThe Biopharma deal will give GE enough cash to ride out the coronavirus crisis. Meanwhile, the rejuvenation of its Aviation, Power, and Renewables business will boost its results in the longer term, meaningfully lifting GE stock and making it a buy for long term investors.As of this writing, Larry Ramer owned shares of GE stock. Larry Ramer has conducted research and written articles on U.S. stocks for 13 years. He has been employed by The Fly and Israel's largest business newspaper, Globes. Larry began writing columns for InvestorPlace in 2015. Among his highly successful, contrarian picks have been GE, solar stocks, and Snap. You can reach him on StockTwits at @larryramer. More From InvestorPlace * 25 Stocks You Should Sell Immediately * 1 Under-the-Radar 5G Stock to Buy Now * This Stock Picker's Latest Video Just Went Viral * The 1 Stock All Retirees Must Own The post Why GE Stock Still Looks Like a Good Play for Long-Term Investors appeared first on InvestorPlace.

The noble lie about masks and coronavirus should never have been told

Those of you of a certain age will doubtless remember a time when it was universally acknowledged that wearing masks would not protect you or anyone else from the coronavirus pandemic. By "certain age" here I mean all living Americans born on or before April 1, 2020, which according to my notes is when it became possible to express a contrary position in polite society.This was always nonsense. The White House is now suggesting that all of us should wear masks whenever we leave our houses. We are even stealing vast stockpiles of them from the Germans, who have been wearing them in public for around a month on the rather more numerous occasions when their leaders exempt them from house arrest. People who can't get proper masks (apparently the kind people wear when they spray for bugs) are being encouraged to make their own. If nothing else, this has given tedious DIY addicts something else to be self satisfied about. No one cares how quaint and interesting you think the piece of cloth meant to protect you from a disease is, okay?Whether the journalists and other apparent experts who enthusiastically spread this apparent lie about masks knew it was false is very much an open question. Some of us found it odd that the same people were also saying that masks should be reserved for use by medical professionals. If masks don't do anything, why do doctors and nurses need them? Are they an ornamental part of a dress uniform? The mind reels.Regardless of the personal honesty of those involved in it, this propaganda campaign should never have been conducted in the first place. It is one thing to debate what should be empirical questions, such as the efficacy of wearing protective equipment in an attempt to forestall the spread of viral infections; it is another for people to bang on about whatever the latest current corona wisdom is with the same tedious certainty that not long ago made us a nation of Logan Act scholars and experts on the non-existent criminal law implications of the emoluments clause. These manias do roughly as much for public health as those kids — there was at least one in every first-grade class — who relentlessly ssshh everyone else in line do to improve schoolyard behavior.The 180-degree shift in acceptable public opinion about masks is in line with how the rest of this crisis has unfolded. Masks won't help. Everyone needs a mask. It's not worth shutting down travel to and from China over the virus, and Trump is just being a xenophobe here. Trump should have done more to prevent the virus from coming to these shores. It's less dangerous than the flu; calling it less dangerous than the flu is a right-wing meme, perhaps even (one shudders) "misinformation." Human beings can't even transmit the virus directly to one another; it originated with animals in Chinese open-air "wet" food markets. Talking about the wet markets is racist, except when Dr. Fauci does it.Can we please stop talking this way? As I write this our paper of record is all but publicly rooting for the failure of anti-malarial drugs that appear to have been successful in treating some coronavirus patients. It is not against "science," whatever that may be, for the president or anyone else to observe that certain medicines or treatments have worked. It is not for science, either. It's just a fact that may or may not have limited application depending upon what happens over the next few months. A bit more epistemic humility would be welcome all around.As would more of I will bluntly call adult behavior. We must put an end to the idea that the best way to get through this crisis is to say things we know are not true in the hope of getting people to behave a certain way. This means not saying masks are useless when what you really mean is, "Masks are in short supply, please consider before you start hoarding them whether you really need them at present and if so how many." Ditto the painfully relentless attempts to give young people the impression that they are horribly likely to die from the new virus. Even in Italy, the country with the worst measured fatality rate so far, around 86 percent of all the deceased have been aged 70 or older, and 50 percent were at least 80. We do not need to zero in on statistical anomalies or otherwise engage in scaremongering. It should be enough to say, "Even though you are very unlikely to die from coronavirus, remember that you could contract the disease and spread it to more vulnerable people without even experiencing symptoms, so please don't revel with 5000 strangers at the beach and then run home to give Grandma a hug."This is how grown-ups talk to one another.More stories from theweek.com Social distancing is going to get darker 5 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's TV ratings boast What is 'essential work' in the coronavirus fight?

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  Coronavirus: US 'wants 3M to end mask exports to Canada and Latin America'
  BBC
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  Trump: Won't wear a coronavirus mask because it would interfere with foreign leader meetings
  USA TODAY

Rebecca Ramsey Dies: Visual Effects Producer On ‘Watchmen’, ‘Spider-Man 3’ & More Was 53

Rebecca Ramsey, whose dozens of visual effects credits include Watchmen, The Hunger Games and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has died. She was 53. Ramsey passed on March 7 from complications related to a fall in her home, according to her longtime friend, Jenny McShane. Ramsey was a producer and EP of VFX, VR/AR/MR, 3D stereo, […]

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