What happened
Shares of General Motors (GM 0.66%) were moving higher on Thursday, after the company's chief financial officer told analysts that GM now expects its full-year operating profit to come in above its previous guidance.
As of 10:30 a.m. ET, GM's shares were up about 4.3% from Wednesday's closing price.
So what
In a presentation at a Credit Suisse event for analysts on Wednesday, GM CFO Paul Jacobson boosted the company's full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest and tax, or "EBIT-adjusted" in GM's lingo.
"I'm pleased to say that we've experienced a little bit of favorability on costs and volumes [that] have been trending higher than we expected them to be, primarily on chip availability just from what we've seen just a few weeks ago," Jacobson said. "And consequently, our fourth quarter is coming in stronger than where we expected to be just a month ago.
"And we now see our full year EBIT adjusted in the sort of $14 billion-ish range, higher than our previous outlook of the high end of our $11.5 billion to $13.5 billion range," he said.
That's clearly good news for GM investors, and that's why the stock was higher on Thursday morning.
Amid 2021's supply chain disruptions, GM has prioritized production of its high-profit trucks. Demand has been strong, and GM's bottom line is seeing the benefits. Image source: General Motors.
Now what
Yesterday wasn't the first time that GM boosted its full-year guidance for EBIT-adjusted in 2021:
- Back in January, Jacobson said GM expected EBIT-adjusted of between $10 billion and $11 billion.
- In its second-quarter earnings call on Aug. 4, Jacobson boosted that range to between $11.5 billion and $13.5 billion.
- In GM's third-quarter call on Oct. 27, Jacobson said that GM expected its full-year EBIT-adjusted to come in at the high end of that range, around $13.5 billion.
Now it's expecting even more, thanks to good cost controls and continued strong demand for its high-profit trucks and SUVs.
