General Electric (NYSE:GE) shares rose sharply after first-quarter earnings topped expectations, the company reaffirmed its 2019 forecast and the troubled conglomerate burned less cash last quarter than feared.
Earnings per Share came in at 13 cents a shares vs. expected nine cents a share. Revenue proved $27.3 billion as opposed to an expected $27 billion.
GE’s industrial free cash flow in the quarter, a key metric that many analysts and shareholders use to judge the health of the company, was a loss of $1.2 billion.
Free cash flow is a financial term defined as money left over after a company pays for operating expenses and capital spending and is often used as a gauge of efficiency.
The loss was largely expected, as CEO Larry Culp warned investors in March that GE would see between flat to negative $2 billion in free cash flow for 2019.
Even with the first quarter coming in "better than our expectations," Culp said in a statement that this was “largely driven by timing of certain items, which should balance out over the course of the year.”
"We expect our performance for the year to be in line with our previous commentary," Culp said.
Monday, the company’s Aviation arm joined with Auterion to announce the integration of the Auterion Enterprise PX4 operating system on GE Aviation’s Unmanned Aircraft System avionics platform. They show their commitment by signing a teaming agreement to provide a comprehensive hardware and software solution for drone manufacturers and operators seeking to enable commercial drone operations at scale.
GE began trading Tuesday up 75 cents, or 7.7%, to $10.47
