Originally Posted by cnbc.com

General Motors (GM, news, msgs) lost $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter. That's a staggering amount. And even excluding one-time items the automaker missed Wall Street expectations by nearly $2 per share.

GM reported a net loss of $8.45 per share in the last three months of 2005. Excluding non-recurring items, GM lost $2.09 per share, much more than the 12 cents per share loss analysts polled by Reuters Estimates predicted. Revenues dropped 1.8% from the year-ago period to $42.38 billion, which was higher than the consensus of $41.17 billion.

The stock fell 3.6% before hours.

There was a time when such sharp earnings miss from a Dow component would mean instant red arrows for the market. Instead, just GM is suffering while the broader market focuses on solid earnings from other Dow components.

"The GM miss was pretty high profile, but GM is known as being in trouble right now, along with the rest of the U.S. auto sector," Bob Iaccino, senior vice president for proprietary trading at Spike Trading, told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "I don't think that it's going to affect the market too much."

Originally Posted by Chris 96 WS6

Half of that is Delphi-bailout related...one time charges as the article said.

Originally Posted by guionM

Isn't it about this point where Buickman comes in with his 11 point plan will save the company, and how Rick Wagoner is the anti-christ?

Originally Posted by guionM

Isn't it about this point where Buickman comes in with how his 11 point plan will save the company, GM's board of directors are iditots for not listening to him, and that Rick Wagoner is the antichrist?

Originally Posted by guionM

I'm not sure, but I believe a good part of that is the startup of the new GMT-900. We're talking a lineup that ultimately provides nearly half of GM's sales volume.

Originally Posted by cmutt

Don't discount the idea that GM accelerated other costs into this quarter as well. It's a common practice for companies to lump their losses into one bad quarter -- especially when they and the market expect it. It makes it that much easier in future quarters.

Originally Posted by R377

R&D costs for vehicle programs are amotized over most of the life of the vehicles. They are not expensed solely at the time the costs are incurred.

Besides, GM (and all automakers) have a continuous flow of program launches that consume money on a continual basis. It's not like GM spends $2 billion on one new program and then has no developmental costs until it's time to redesign it. IIRC, GM's current R&D budget is around $7 billion per year, and if it's not GMT-900s that are consuming it, then something else would be.