But a company spokesman said the conglomerate's triple-A credit rating was secure and that it had not been hurt by recent trouble at two top financial services firms.
The company's shares have tumbled 17 percent in the last week, erasing $47.6 billion of their market value.
The fall comes in a week when stocks have been hammered by the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and a U.S. government bailout of insurer American International Group Inc.
'This is about the fallout in the financial world,' said Brian Langenberg, principal at Langenberg & Co in New York. 'In the last week, we've seen the fire sale of Lehman, Merrill Lynch running into the arms of a bank, we've seen AIG bailed out. Anything out there that is financial services is at risk.'
The question worrying investors, Langenberg said, is 'What are the risks on the balance sheet?'
The cost to insure the conglomerate's debt rose 30 percent to $510,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, according to Markit Intraday.
A GE spokesman said the company's triple-A credit rating remains secure, that its exposure to Lehman Brothers was 'immaterial' and that its exposure to AIG has been 'resolved' by the U.S. government's $85 billion in rescue loans to the insurer.
'We're committed to the triple-A. We have strong cash flow and a diversified portfolio and even in this difficult environment the triple A remains secure,' said Russell Wilkerson, a spokesman for the conglomerate.
GE's 6 percent first-quarter profit drop, which stunned investors who had been looking for growth, came at another time of market turbulence following the near-collapse of Bear Stearns.
JPMorgan analyst Stephen Tusa in a note to clients said he expects profit at GE's financial arm, which accounts for about half its profit, to fall 5 percent to 10 percent in 2009.
'We see the potential for another year of decline at GE Capital,' Tusa wrote.
The slide in GE's shares continued despite a Sunday letter to investors posted on the company's website that emphasized that its finance arm is stable.
GE shares fell $1.75 to $23.31 on the New York Stock Exchange. GE's drop was far deeper than the 2.5 percent slide of the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average and the 3 percent fall of the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index,
(Additional reporting by Karen Brettell in New York; Editing by Brian Moss and Derek Caney) Keywords: GE/SHARES Please write your own byline and save in your preferences vj COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.
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