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General Electric is having a top-notch year.
Shares of the industrial giant have gained 32 percent so far in 2019, making it one of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500. Other top performers include Chipotle, up 63 percent; Xilinx, up 50 percent; Ulta Beauty, up 42 percent; and Best Buy, up 34 percent.
And, with CEO Larry Culp‘s restructuring efforts underway, one market watcher sees more upside ahead.
“We think there’s significant upside from here,” John Petrides, managing director and portfolio manager at Point View Wealth Management, told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Thursday.
“GE here, today, is not what it’s going to do over the next six months, but where is GE going to be in March of 2020 or March of 2021?” he said.
Petrides acknowledged that GE’s 30-plus percent rise this year has looked like a “dead cat bounce,” or a rapid recovery in a stock’s price that often appears to be a sustained reversal, but is usually followed by further weakness. But the company’s turnaround efforts made him somewhat optimistic about the long term.
“They just liquidated one business at $21 billion. That’s going to help free up balance sheet concerns. Doesn’t seem like there’s any more issues on the insurance side of things,” he noted.
Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, wasn’t as convinced by GE’s place among the S&P’s top perfomers.
“We’re momentum investors. We love buying leadership. Historically, academic study after academic study will show you that stocks that outperform are usually stocks that continue to outperform,” he said on “Trading Nation.” “I would say, though, from this short list, one outlier here that we can’t get behind is General Electric.”
Wald also acknowledged the company’s surprise outperformance year to date, but noted that “it’s still below some very formidable resistance levels” like its 200-day moving average.
“You can make the case that this stock is now overbought in a downtrend,” Wald said. “We see that as a near-term opportunity to sell long-term strength. GE would be one we’d be selling, and then sticking instead with strength with a name like Ulta.”
Disclosures: Point View Wealth Management and John Petrides or someone in his household own shares of GE.
