General Motors has suddenly made popping up on the cover of Barron's a much riskier proposition.
Jeffrey Yale Rubin with Birinyi Associates found that after GM graced the cover of the Dow Jones weekly on June 2, 2008 with the headline "Buy GM," the company's stock has fallen 97%. Of course, GM also had to file for creditor protection a year later, almost to the day.
This is all a roundabout way for Mr. Rubin to warn investors that the cover for the current March 1 edition of Barron's, which declares "GM is back!" and could return with an IPO this year, should probably be taken with a grain of salt.
Clearly the only way out from under this developing curse now is for GM chief executive Edward Whitacre to simultaneously appear on the covers of Sports Illustrated and the next Madden game.
After all, what else could possibly happen?