GM, Ford stocks screech to record lows
BY KATIE MERX
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. stocks plunged even deeper into record territory Thursday as a ban on short-selling of the stocks ended, Standard & Poor's said it may cut their debt ratings further into junk and anxiety about the global economy swelled.
Shares of GM fell $2.15, or 31.1%, closing at $4.76, a level not seen since an adjusted close of $4.74 on April 1, 1950, according to the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago.
Ford stock fell 58 cents, or 21.8%, closing at $2.08, its lowest price since an adjusted close of $2.06 on April 11, 1984.
The center adjusts historical prices for splits and other distributions going back to 1925. In that time, it reports that neither GM's nor Ford's shares have ever registered unadjusted prices as low as they have been this week.
Both companies registered 52-week highs on Oct. 12, 2007, when GM closed at $42.64 and Ford closed at $9.20.
When GM's stock last was worth so little, in 1950, the U.S. stock market had not yet returned to the prices seen prior to the Great Depression.
On Thursday, it was the biggest decliner among Dow Jones Industrial Average components. The closely watched index lost 678.91 points in trading Thursday, falling to its lowest level in five years.
