GM profit plunges after housing finance loss

Reuters reports on GM:

on Thursday reported a 90 percent drop in first-quarter earnings, missing Wall Street estimates by a wide margin, as mortgage-related losses at its GMAC affiliate swamped gains in its main business.

GM Chief Financial Officer Fritz Henderson said weaker GMAC results were the major reason earnings missed even the lowest of Wall Street expectations.

But analysts raised concerns about both GM's remaining exposure to the riskiest segment of the U.S. mortgage market and the pace of the automaker's efforts to restore its North American operations to profitability.

Shares of GM dropped more than 3 percent, while its bonds weakened and credit default swaps widened.

The crank economist John Kenneth Galbraith sure was wrong about GM.