Merrill Lynch cuts General Motors rating

Detroit News Wire Services

General Motors Corp. was cut to "underperform" from "buy" at Merrill Lynch & Co., which said "bankruptcy is not impossible" for the largest U.S. automaker, Bloomberg News reported today.

"The key change in our outlook is a much lower forecast for U.S. auto sales that is driving a higher cash burn necessitating a much larger capital raise than the market is currently anticipating," New York-based analyst John Murphy wrote in a note to clients today. "Bankruptcy is not impossible," he added.