History is usually written by the winners, but in the case of General Electric, the "winners" changed so many times that the stock chart looks like a mountain range designed by a committee. If you look at the General Electric share price history over the last few decades, you aren’t just looking at numbers on a screen. You're looking at the rise and fall of a corporate religion.
GE wasn't just a company; it was the company.
Honestly, it’s kinda wild to think about now. Back in the late 90s, owning GE was basically the closest thing to a "sure thing" in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. Then, the wheels came off. Then, they put the wheels back on, but the car was suddenly three different bicycles.
The Jack Welch Era: When GE Owned the World
To understand where the stock is today, you've gotta look at the 1980s and 90s. Jack Welch took over in 1981 when GE had a market cap of about $13 billion. By the time he left in 2001, it was worth over $400 billion.
People called it "Old Faithful."
The stock price during this era was a steady, upward-sloping line that made everyone feel like a genius. Welch was obsessed with being #1 or #2 in every market. If a division wasn't winning, he sold it or closed it. This "Neutron Jack" approach pushed the General Electric share price history to an all-time high (at the time) of nearly $60 in August 2000.
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But there was a catch.
A huge chunk of those earnings came from GE Capital. It was basically a giant bank hiding inside an industrial company. It worked beautifully until the world stopped wanting giant, unregulated banks. When Welch handed the keys to Jeff Immelt in September 2001—literally days before 9/11—the "magic" started to evaporate.
The Long Slide and the $6 Bottom
If the Welch era was a rocket ship, the Immelt era was a slow-motion parachute failure. The stock spent years drifting. The 2008 financial crisis was the final nail. GE Capital, the former golden goose, nearly sank the entire ship.
Investors watched in horror as the share price plummeted.
By early 2009, the stock hit a rock bottom of around $6 per share. Think about that. The most admired company in the world was trading for the price of a deli sandwich. Warren Buffett eventually stepped in with a $3 billion lifeline, which helped stabilize things, but the "premium" GE once enjoyed was gone for good.
The Breakup: Three Companies, One Ticker
Fast forward to the 2020s. Larry Culp takes the reigns and decides the only way to save GE is to kill GE.
It was a bold move.
The plan was simple: split the conglomerate into three focused, independent companies.
- GE HealthCare (GEHC): Spun off in early 2023.
- GE Vernova (GEV): The energy and power business, spun off in April 2024.
- GE Aerospace (GE): The "core" aviation business that kept the original ticker.
This is where the General Electric share price history gets confusing for casual observers. When a company spins off a division, the stock price usually drops because the company literally just gave away a piece of itself to shareholders. If you owned 100 shares of GE, you suddenly woke up with shares in two or three different companies.
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Where we stand in 2026
As of January 2026, the "new" GE (Aerospace) is trading at levels we haven't seen in nearly two decades. On January 6, 2026, the stock hit an all-time high of $327.54.
Wait, $327? Wasn't it $60 in the year 2000?
This is the part that trips people up. You have to account for the 1-for-8 reverse stock split that happened in August 2021. GE reduced the number of shares to boost the price per share. If you don't adjust for that, the charts look like nonsense.
In the last 12 months, GE Aerospace has been a monster, up nearly 90%. Why? Because the world is desperate for jet engines and maintenance. While GE Vernova is riding the energy transition wave and GE HealthCare is stable in the medical tech space, the Aerospace division is the one carrying the torch for the original "GE" ticker.
Important Technical Markers
- 52-Week High: $332.79 (hit recently in early 2026).
- 52-Week Low: $159.36.
- Current Trend: Technical analysts see an "ascending channel," with the 50-day moving average staying comfortably above the 200-day average.
What Most Investors Miss
The biggest mistake people make when looking at General Electric share price history is comparing the 2026 price to the 1999 price without context.
They are different animals.
The old GE was a bloated monster that owned everything from lightbulbs to NBC Universal. The new GE is a lean, mean, aviation machine. When you look at the total real returns—meaning you reinvested those dividends and adjusted for inflation—the "new" GE has actually outperformed the S&P 500 significantly over the last three years.
It’s a classic turnaround story. It took twenty years of pain to get here, but the "conglomerate discount" that plagued the stock for two decades has finally been erased by the split.
Actionable Insights for Investors
If you're tracking the history to predict the future, keep these three things in mind:
- Check the Split Adjustments: Always ensure your charting tool is "split-adjusted." If it's not, the 2021 reverse split will make it look like the stock 10x'ed overnight.
- Watch the Dividends: GE used to be a dividend king, then it cut the payout to a penny. Now that the companies are separate, each has its own dividend policy. GE Aerospace is much more focused on buybacks and growth than the high-yield "Old Faithful" days.
- Understand the Ticker: Remember that the "GE" ticker now represents only Aerospace. If you want the power or healthcare businesses, you have to look at GEV or GEHC.
The era of the "everything company" is dead. GE's history is the ultimate proof that sometimes, to grow, you have to cut yourself into pieces.
To stay on top of your GE holdings, the best next step is to pull a consolidated report of your cost basis if you held shares prior to 2023. You'll need to allocate your original purchase price across GE, GEV, and GEHC for tax purposes. Most brokerages do this automatically, but checking the "Corporate Actions" section of your investor relations portal is the only way to be 100% sure of your historical performance.