General Electric Must Address Finance Unit

General Electric (GE Quote) may need to shrink its financial unit if it wants to recapture the flagging confidence of investors, who have cut the conglomerate's share price in half over the past year.

GE appears to be interested in addressing concerns about its GE Capital financial unit, but details thus far have been scarce. Nick Heymann, an analyst with Sterne Agee, believes the stock market has been punishing GE over GE Capital worries, assigning the stock a price-to-earnings ratio that is more typical for a financial company than an industrial one.

Indeed, an analysis of Bloomberg data by TheStreet.com, suggests Heymann has a point. ...