GM Profit Report Beats Expectations

General Motors Corp. on Tuesday reported second-quarter earnings that were better than Wall Street expected, but its stock got caught in the gyrations of the stock market nonetheless.

“It was a pretty good [earnings] performance overall,” analyst Joseph Phillippi of Lehman Bros. said. “They nicely beat the Street expectations--not that it matters a hill of beans today.”

GM was unchanged at $47 on the New York Stock Exchange. Shortly after the profit figures were released, GM’s stock rose but later followed the market’s broad swings, dipping and rising throughout the day.

The world’s largest auto maker said its profit fell 17% in the April-June period, mostly because of $208.8 million in costs related to last month’s spinoff of Electronic Data Systems Corp.

Earnings totaled $1.89 billion, or $2.63 a share, compared with $2.27 billion, or $2.39 a share, for the same period last year. The per-share figures weren’t affected by the spinoff because the charge was attributed to a different class of stock.

Without the costs of the EDS split, GM’s earnings from continuing operations were up slightly at $2.1 billion, or $2.65 a share, compared with $1.9 billion, or $2.41 a share, a year ago. The 1995 figures exclude a $149-million net gain from the sale of National Car Rental System and a stock repurchase program.

Revenue, including $3.1 billion from the GMAC financing unit, increased 6%, to $44.7 billion from $42.2 billion.

“On balance, they came up with a very good quarter,” said analyst Maryann Keller of Furman Selz Inc. “There were no surprises. It was consistent with the kind of business environment we’re in.”

GM’s per-share results were better than the average $2.51-a-share estimate in First Call’s survey of 18 analysts.

Earnings from GM’s North American operations, including parts subsidiary Delphi Automotive Systems, totaled $1.1 billion. That compares with $880 million in the second quarter of 1995.

U.S. vehicle deliveries were up 4% to 1.37 million units, compared with 1.32 million units a year ago. That was due in part to a nearly 5% increase in car sales to fleets.

For the six months ended June 30, GM’s earnings were down 34% to $2.91 billion, or $3.57 a share, compared with $4.37 billion, or $4.83 a share, for the first half of 1995.

Profit from continuing operations was $2.9 billion, down 28% from $4.04 billion. Revenue totaled $84.01 billion, up slightly from $83.6 billion a year ago.

GMAC reported second-quarter earnings of $350 million, up 35% from $259 million in the comparable period of 1995.