We recently published a list of 10 Best Automotive Stocks To Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) stands against the other automotive stocks.
Headwinds in the Automotive Industry
The automotive industry is heavily commoditized relative to other industries considering the fact that consumers typically have numerous options in terms of the car they want to purchase, resulting in the need for automotive companies to compete with each other predominantly on pricing. As a result, many automotive companies, especially those offering pricier vehicles, have been seeing a decline in revenue growth and profit margins over the past couple of years. This decline is primarily a consequence of rising inflation which has significantly cut down your average consumer’s spending power.
According to Daryl Kenningham in his interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” the President and CEO of Group 1 Automotive, the wider macroeconomic trends surrounding the automotive industry and the support of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the market have resulted in prices for vehicles, both used and new, beginning to fall in 2024 – though this price decline is being seen more evidently in the case of new cars, seeing as there has been a prolonged shortage of pre-owned cars in the market. Despite the decline, though, the average transaction costs for purchasing any car are still pretty high, which has been acting as an impediment barring consumers from getting into cars.
Rising Industry Trends
Considering the current market conditions, many consumers are thus looking for lower-priced vehicles. This spells trouble for electric vehicle (EV) producers since EVs are notorious for their hefty price tags and pricey battery replacements, and lays the foundation for the newest hot trend in the automotive space: hybrid cars. Ford’s former CEO, Mark Fields, in his interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on August 30, noted that because of the greater convenience offered by hybrid cars, automakers dabbling within the EV space should expand their hybrid offerings. Simultaneously, the vision of producing pure EVs shouldn’t be entirely abandoned either – instead, time and resources must be dedicated to producing lower-priced EVs that automakers can actually make money on.
Fields further added that another impediment to the growth of EV makers today is the prolonged waiting time for charging an EV. For this, the only viable solution on the horizon is the development of solid-state batteries that can significantly reduce charge time to about 5-10 minutes – around the same time you spend at a typical gas station. However, the mass production of solid-state batteries and their incorporation in EVs is still something that we won’t see happening in the near future. This is why we believe that investors interested in automotive stocks should look at not only EV manufacturers but also traditional vehicle producers or, even better, companies that offer both types of vehicles to their consumers. The list we have compiled below reflects this position.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).
A group of technicians in a garage, inspecting car parts and ensuring safety compliance.
General Motors Company (NYSE:GM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 72
General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) is a provider of trucks, crossovers, cars, and automobile parts. It is a well-known automotive company that is based in Detroit, Michigan.
General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) is a great automotive play for several reasons. First, the stock is among the most underrated options in the EV market because most investors still consider it to be a traditional automotive company. General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) is actually developing an EV strategy, the progress of which has been impressive, to say the least. Some of the EV products it’s offering include the Hummer EV, Chevy Silverado EV, and Cadillac Lyric SUV. In the second quarter alone, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) delivered 22,000 EVs, which represents a growth of 40% year-over-year and provided the company with a market share of 2.2% higher than it was a year ago.
A second reason for investing in General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) today is that the stock is incredibly cheap. The stock has a P/E ratio of 5.01, which is well below the sector median of 15.9. The main reason behind the stock’s cheap valuation is its massive profitability. If we look at the second quarter, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) produced about $5.3 billion in free cash flow, which represents the best figure reported by the company since 2020 – and it managed to rake in this much money while maintaining pricing power above the industry average. All in all, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) is an exceptional automotive stock to invest in right now.
A total of 72 hedge funds were long General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) in the second quarter, with a total stake value of $4.1 billion.
Overall GM ranks 2nd on our list of the best automotive stocks to buy. While we acknowledge the potential of GM as an investment, we believe that AI stocks hold promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than GM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.