Why General Electric Stock Jumped Nearly 10% at the Open Today

Shares of industrial conglomerate General Electric (NYSE: GE) rose swiftly out of the gate on Wednesday, gaining a touch over 9% in early trading. Although the stock gave back some of that gain by 10 a.m. EDT today, it remained higher by around 5%. The big news driving the sharp gain was that GE will be selling its lighting division to Savant Systems.

Basically, GE has been struggling to turn itself around since the Great Recession. The troubles have been particularly acute over the last few years, with two CEOs getting ousted in a very short time. Current CEO Lawrence Culp appears to have gotten things moving in the right direction again, but the effort has involved a lot of restructuring and asset sales. The latest move was to jettison the company's lighting business, a division that once sparked the tagline "GE: We bring good things to light" in a memorable advertising campaign.

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Source Fool.com