This Stock Is Going To Zero
By Porter Stansberry
February 23, 2007

Charles Dow, who wrote financial newsletters and books at the turn of the century (and pioneered Dow Theory), famously said: "My clients don't pay me to be bearish."

I'm sure you feel the same way. You read DailyWealth because you want us to help you find opportunities, whatever the weather.

That said, I think we might be entering a period of poor stock returns.

Normally, you can find a sector that's been beat up for a few years. Not right now. This bull market has been the broadest four-year rally I've ever seen. Lots of investors think they're geniuses – especially the commodity guys. Everything I follow has gotten too expensive to buy safely. And investors have begun to completely ignore risk. 

Meanwhile, corporate insiders have all but completely stopped buying stocks.

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For the next few months, I'm going to be adding short-sell positions to the recommended portfolio in my newsletter, PSIA. It shouldn't be any surprise what my first short-sell recommendation is... General Motors (NYSE: GM). 

As I've written in The Digest, the daily e-letter I send to subscribers, GM is already bankrupt. Over the last 10 years, General Motors has been unable to make a profit selling cars. Its gross profits have declined by 46%, from $40 billion in 1996 to only $22 billion in 2005. It hasn't been earning enough money to pay for its overhead, capital expenses (upkeep of factories), or dividend payments. The result? An exploding debt level. In 10 years, the company's total liabilities have grown from $199 billion to more than $450 billion.

GM has been burning the family furniture to keep the furnace running. It has gone past the point of no return. General Motors will never earn enough money selling cars to repay these debts. In fact, the company cannot make enough money to merely service these debts. The final nail in the coffin came in 2005, when GM's credit rating was first downgraded to "junk" status. Since then, as its obligations have come due, the company has had to refinance at steadily increasing rates of interest. Its financing costs have soared. Over the last three years, GM's annual interest expense grew by 77%, from $9 billion to $16 billion.

GM can downsize, it can close factories, it can lay off union workers and renegotiate pensions. But its debts cannot be downsized. And its bondholders aren't going to settle for less than the full amount they are owed. GM cannot pay. Its shareholders will be wiped out, and its bondholders will end up owning the company. GM will be bankrupt within three years – or perhaps sooner if the economy slows.

If you don't understand GM's precarious financial situation, shorting the stock probably doesn't make sense. It pays a 3% dividend that you'll have to pay, if you're short. It's attempting a massive restructuring that will probably increase its operating results this year. The stock has bounced strongly off its lows. But none of that stuff matters when you realize that GM must spend $16 billion to $18 billion this year alone on debt financing and, with that burden, there is no way the company can make a profit. It's only a matter of time before the company goes bankrupt and the common stock goes to zero.

Good investing, Porter Stansberry