It reorted a third-quarter profit of $2.49 billion, or 23 cents per share, compared with earnings of $4.31 billion, or 43 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 20 per cent to $37.8 billion.

The company has been cutting back its GE Capital finance arm, which had invested heavily in commercial real estate and has been hard hit by the credit crunch.
After plumbing 18-year lows in March, GE shares are now up about 4 per cent so far this year, trailing the 15 per cent rise of the Dow Jones industrial average.