Why General Electric Is Poised to Outperform

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, industrial behemoth General Electric (NYSE: GE  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at GE, and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

GE facts

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Headquarters (founded)	Fairfield, Conn. (1892)
Market Cap	$234.4 billion
Industry	Industrial conglomerates
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$147.4 billion
Management	Chairman/CEO Jeffrey Immelt Vice Chairman/CFO Keith Sherin
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)	11.5%
Cash/Debt	$125.7 billion / $414.1 billion
Dividend Yield	3.4%
Competitors	Honeywell International (NYSE: HON  ) Siemens (NYSE: SI  ) United Technologies (NYSE: UTX  )

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 94% of the 16,520 members who have rated GE believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Just last month, one of those Fools, djohn1969, succinctly summed up the bull case for our community:

It's official -- GE is back and better than ever, largely due to lessons learned from its painful struggle through the 2008 financial crisis. Even though GE Capital is still a large (and very lucrative) part of the business, the parent company has been successfully shifting resources back toward its traditional industrial expertise with strong footholds in health care, aviation, energy, etc. For example, with its relatively new and already very successful oil and gas services business, GE is very well positioned to be a huge benefactor of the U.S. transition to energy independence.

GE has regained status as one of my core holdings over the past few years and I don't plan to ever sell again. I might consider it if I think we're headed for a 2008 repeat, but I'm confident GE would weather such an event much better from lessons learned and I believe 2008 was a once-in-a-lifetime event anyway.

Of course, that short pitch doesn't even come close to telling the entire story for GE. You're in luck, though. The Fool's brand-new premium report on GE looks at all sides of one of the most compelling and ubiquitous companies in the world. You can grab your copy, which comes with free updates for 12 months.

Want to see how well (or not so well) the stocks in this series are performing? Follow the TrackPoisedTo CAPS account.