I could see an even more speculative mid term play if you assume that the 80% cut in stock value is already priced in, and that the deal with bondholders will go through AND the economy will recover such that GM starts making a profit.
Then you have the bet the stock will increase in value enough to cover your risk, quickly sell it before gas goes up north of $3/gallon or GM's internal weaknesses rear their ugly heads and the company goes to chapter 11 anyways.
Far too speculative for me, I'd rather put it all on 00 on a roulette wheel.
But I thought I might have missed something?
And this is an excellent point! What investor in their right mind would invest in GM or ANY auto manufaturer at this time? As an investor I would want to know facts and figures of the company, see trend data, consider what consumers might do, etc. But when the govt starts getting involved, it becomes a game of which company has the most push/pull with the govt. And that is something that there is no way to know, and can change daily.
In my opinion, this is preciesly why the act of the govt "touching" a private business will automatically "taint" it. I just do not see a way around that one...