General Motors Corp.'s first-quarter profit fell 90 percent compared with a year ago, citing losses in the home lending operations of its former financial arm.

It was the second consecutive quarterly profit for the nation's largest automaker, which said in Thursday's report it had record vehicle sales worldwide and improvements in its automotive operations in the latest quarter.

But the profit of $62 million, or 11 cents a share, for the January-March period was down from $602 million, or $1.06 per share, a year ago.

Its earnings excluding one-time items fell short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell nearly 4 percent in midday trading.

The company attributed the year-over-year decline to losses in the residential mortgage business of GMAC Financial Services. GM sold a 51 percent stake in GMAC to private equity investors last year, but still owns a 49 percent stake in the business.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_gm

Wow... how do you drop your quarterly profit by 90% comparing to the previous year and still stay in business? *hats off* The American automotive never fail to impress me with their creativity and ability to defy logic and "mysteriously" stay alive. Since I'm always so negative about everything and able to point out the most obvious flaws common people seem to ignore, let me be the 349749393th person to say this: You're only your own victim of trying to sell crappy products using the American brand! You're running a business based on numbers instead of proudly making a product with passion! It's the year 2007 and we're talking about Global economy here, and the rest of the world out there does not buy your crappy products just because it's American made!