Goldman Sachs says sell GM, and they do. Back to the ‘50s?

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It isn’t often that a CEO can lament that his company’s stock price is lower than it was before he was born.

Could that soon be Rick Wagoner’s fate at General Motors Corp.?

The auto giant’s shares traded as low as $11.21 early today, which by Reuters’ reckoning was the lowest since 1955.

Wagoner was born in 1953. So the trend here doesn’t look good for him.

But it isn’t clear to me that the Reuters calculation adjusts for GM stock splits that occurred in 1950 and 1955 (according to Standard & Poor’s). As you might imagine, 50-year-old stock data isn’t easy to come by.

UPDATE: GM today closed down $1.38 to $11.43, a price level the stock last saw late in 1974, according to research firm Global Financial Data in L.A. Before that, you do indeed have to go back to 1954-55 to find GM at this price -- and that includes the adjustment for stock splits and spinoffs, Global Financial Data says.

Investors bailed out of GM today for the eighth time in nine sessions after Goldman Sachs & Co. downgraded the stock to ‘sell’ from ‘hold.’ Goldman said it expected GM to burn through so much cash this year and next that the company probably would have to raise fresh capital, ‘which we believe could lead to significant shareholder dilution and/or a cut to the company’s dividend.’

The stock has plunged 54% year to date, and is one of the big reasons why the Dow Jones industrial average is having such a miserable June.

Among the major brokerages, Goldman is alone with its ‘sell’ rating on GM, according to Bloomberg’s tally of analyst recommendations. Merrill Lynch & Co. has a ‘buy’ on the stock, Lehman Bros. rates it ‘hold’ and Citigroup also gives it a ‘hold,’ says Bloomberg.

They’re riding this SUV right over the cliff.