William Blair analyst Nicholas Heymann ascribes General Electric’s 12% share price rise yesterday following its Q4 results to an “inflection in investor sentiment, not short-covering.” He believes this occurred in mid-December after the stock bottomed at $6.66. GE ended 2018 “strongly” with “notably better-than-feared” free cash flow, year-over-year organic Industrial growth of 8% for sales and 4% for orders in Q4, and “slightly positive” net price in 2018 that sequentially improved in the second half, Heymann tells investors in a post-earnings research note titled “Up, Up, and Away: New CEO Accelerating Turnaround Pace; Free Cash Flow Better than Feared; Largest Litigation Resolved.” The analyst also believes the turnaround of GE Power “is in the very early innings with the process, timing, and 2019 performance yet to be fully detailed.” Despite the lack of 2019 detailed guidance, there is no fundamental case for GE shares to have further downside risk, says Heymann. The company’s liquidity is “ample,” its original targeted proceeds from asset sales are now being expanded and completed earlier than expected, and unknown risks and litigation are being resolved in line with prior reserves, the analyst contends. He keeps an Outperform rating on General Electric. Heymann continues to believe GE’s underlying intrinsic value, assigning no value to Power, is somewhere in the range of $14- $16 per share. The analyst sees this range as a “highly feasible base case valuation” for GE’s share price over the next 6-12 months. GE closed yesterday at $10.16 per share.