How We'll Know If GM Is Really Fixed

Six metrics investors should watch to determine the success or failure of postbankruptcy General Motors

General Motors (GM) is back. Right?

Having survived its tumble into bankruptcy and clawed its way back to the stock market, GM is unquestionably in its best shape in decades. Debt has been drastically reduced, labor costs cut sharply, and new management put in charge that has little attachment to the old culture. But GM has been on top of the auto industry as recently as 2000—when it earned $4.5 billion, more than any other car company—and somehow managed to nearly lose it all. So what exactly would tell investors the new GM is on a path to long-lasting success, especially of the sort that would allow U.S. taxpayers and new shareholders to cash out at a profit?

Businessweek.com posed that question to one of the key architects of the new GM, as well as other auto industry insiders, investors, and analysts. Here are the six key metrics they pointed to.

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