Don't Buy Our Stock!

Have you ever heard of a company that was warning people not to buy its stock? That's the situation General Motors has found itself in. GM, of course, declared bankruptcy on June 1, and officially changed its name to Motors Liquidation Company. That's the company that will wind down GM's assets in bankruptcy, and the company has declared to investors that shares in the old GM are worthless.

But the shares traded at over a dollar last week, and gained 37 percent in a single day, despite the fact that both GM and the bankruptcy court have declared the company "hopelessly insolvent." But some apparently confused stockpicking Web sites have described the old GM shares as being part of whatever will arise from the ashes of bankruptcy. That's not the case. The new General Motors, the one that will salvage whatever business GM has left after bankruptcy, is a privately held company. If it ever does go public, it won't be until at least 2010.

Meanwhile, the old GM changed its ticker symbol from its longtime GM to the new GMGMQ, just so no one would be confused. But they were: 75 million GMGMQ shares were trade on Friday, before Finra, the agency that oversees the securities industry, halted trading in the stock. Finra has the right to suspend trading for as long as ten days. Whatever happens, the company and the regulators agree: Don't buy General Motors stock.