GM beats and unveils a $20B buyback, but shares sink 4.9% on its outlook

General Motors (NYSE: GM) reported third-quarter results on Tuesday that beat Wall Street's numbers, narrowed its 2026 forecast, raised its cash-flow outlook and announced a new multiyear $20 billion share buyback. The stock fell anyway. At 10:50 AM ET it traded at $78.67, down $4.08 or 4.93%, according to Nasdaq, after being down about 6% earlier in the session, CNBC reported. Bloomberg's stock-movers segment headlined the forecast, and WSJ's headline pointed to higher costs tied to the Iran conflict.

The quarter against the forecast

Item	Q3 2026	Expected (LSEG)	Q3 2025
Adjusted EPS	$3.70	$3.63	$2.80
Revenue	$50.02 billion	$48.7 billion	$48.59 billion
Net income to stockholders	$3.3 billion	n/a	$1.3 billion

By our arithmetic, adjusted EPS is up 32% from a year ago and revenue is up 2.9%. Profit grew far faster than sales, and that gap matters: GM is earning more on each vehicle it sells, but it is not selling more of them. Our own look at its third-quarter U.S. deliveries showed sales down 5.5%, with the drop concentrated in electric vehicles.

North America did the heavy lifting: $3.6 billion of the company's $4.1 billion in adjusted EBIT, or about 88%, according to CNBC.

Why a beat became a sell-off

The new full-year range is $12.75 to $13.75 in adjusted EPS, a midpoint of $13.25. LSEG's average expectation was a midpoint of $13.41, so GM landed $0.16, or about 1.2%, short. The old range from July was $12 to $14, midpoint $13.00, so the midpoint did rise $0.25. The market was pricing more than that.

Adjusted EBIT guidance is now $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion, and adjusted automotive free cash flow $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion, up from $9.5 billion to $11.5 billion in July. Those are the better-looking numbers in the release, and the buyback follows from them. GM said it finished a $6 billion repurchase program announced in January and gave no completion date for the new $20 billion one.

CFO Paul Jacobson told CNBC that the fourth quarter will be down sequentially and that holding guidance "in the face of that late inflationary pressure" shows good execution. Analysts quoted by CNBC were more focused on whether costs and weak pricing cap earnings growth next year.

The cost lines

• Commodity inflation: about $2 billion, the high end of GM's earlier range, including logistics and DRAM memory chips that hit many industries.
• Tariffs: gross cost now expected at the low end of the $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion range.
• Warranty: the high end, $1 billion to $1.5 billion.
• EV pullback: $11.2 billion in charges recorded since the second half of last year, "substantially completed." GM has paid $4.6 billion of an expected $7.4 billion in cash so far, which leaves about $2.8 billion still to go out the door.

Jacobson said vehicle pricing is roughly flat while costs climb, and that GM will judge consumer health next year before deciding whether to raise prices more than usual. That is the line to watch. Flat prices against rising input costs is how margins get squeezed, and it is the reason a beat did not hold the stock up.

Who it reaches beyond Wall Street

Parts and logistics inflation does not stop at GM's gate. The same DRAM and freight costs flow to suppliers and, eventually, to the repair bay.

224,738 independent auto repair shops are listed on CheckThisBiz, a directory of 7,704,724 independent US businesses, including 26,287 in CA, 22,628 in TX, 14,123 in FL. Chains and franchises are excluded from that count, so these are the owner-operated businesses that actually apply for funding.

Those shops buy the parts that carry this kind of inflation. For owners, our auto repair playbook covers how to keep margin when parts prices rise.

For traders, the setup is simple to state. A company with a $20 billion buyback authorization and $2 billion in commodity pressure sits at $78.67, in a 52-week range of $57.68 to $91.85, per Nasdaq. Whether next year's price and cost picture supports the buyback is the open question; GM has not given 2027 guidance in what we read. More on the day's moves is on our stocks page.

Sources: CNBC, WSJ, Bloomberg, Nasdaq quote data (10:50 AM ET, may be delayed), Chronicle calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.