(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-04-11 21:38

Profit at GE's industrial unit, which makes things like lighting and appliances, fell 16 percent and health care was down 16 percent.

Those declines overshadowed a 17 percent rise in profit at the infrastructure unit, which has been boosted by emerging-market demand for heavy equipment like electricity-producing turbines. NBC Universal's profit rose 3 percent.

Lowers forecast

The company cut its full-year profit forecast from continuing earnings to a range of $2.20 to $2.30 per share.

The new full-year earnings forecast, which calls for profit to be flat to up 5 percent, compares with an earlier view of "at least" 10 percent. Many on Wall Street had viewed that as a conservative forecast.

"The extraordinary disruption in the capital markets in March affected our ability to complete asset sales and resulted in higher mark-to-market losses and impairments," said Jeff Immelt, chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

GE shares were trading at $34.75 in premarket trading, down from a $36.75 close on the New York Stock Exchange.

Prior to Friday's premarket trading, GE shares were down less than 1 percent, less of a drop than the 5 percent slide in the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI), of which GE is a component.

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