(Edits)
* GM Q4 earnings to be released pre-market open Thursday
* GM seen showing more than $5 billion annual profit
* Average analyst expectation for Q4 EPS 46 cents
* U.S. government still owns a third of GM common shares
By Bernie Woodall and Deepa Seetharaman
DETROIT, Feb 24 (Reuters) - General Motors Co is likely to report full-year earnings of more than $5 billion, its first annual profit in six years, although rising commodity prices and a drag from its European operations probably curbed the fourth-quarter performance.
GM's results, due on Thursday, come at a pivotal time for investor sentiment in the U.S. auto industry, still widely seen as being in the early stage of recovery from its near-collapse in 2008 and 2009.
Analysts have been encouraged by GM's strength in China and its progress in slashing costs and debt in a bankruptcy funded by the Obama administration in 2009.
But since GM's record-setting $23 billion initial public offering in November, investors have also become concerned about the pressure on profit margins from rising commodity prices, higher costs for launching new vehicles and the risk of a sustained spike in oil prices.
GM's closest rival Ford Motor Co reported a fourth-quarter profit last month that fell far short of expectations after a $1 billion surge in costs from the third quarter.
The results sent both Ford and GM shares lower as investors worried about the risk that higher costs for everything from steel to plastic to the engineering teams behind new vehicles would erode profitability in future quarters.
GM shares have fallen 11 percent in the four weeks since Ford's results. Ford is down 21 percent in the same period.
GM management led by Chief Executive Dan Akerson had cautioned in a January meeting with analysts that fourth-quarter earnings would be below the rate for the first three quarters of the year.
"Ford has obviously taken a lot of wind out of the upside speculation of GM," said Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Schuster LLC and a fund manager specializing in IPOs.
"If Ford is not meeting the earnings (expectations), it's hard to imagine that GM would strongly outperform," said Schuster, whose funds hold GM shares.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S on average forecast fourth-quarter profit for GM of about $966 million and a full-year 2010 profit of about $5.3 billion.
Fourth-quarter revenue is expected to be nearly $33 billion with earnings of 46 cents per share, according to the average forecasts.
From 2005 to 2009, GM had lost about $88 billion in its slide to bankruptcy.
In the decade prior to then, annual U.S. auto sales averaged almost 17 million vehicles. The total plunged to a low of 10.4 million in 2009, the year that GM was overtaken by Toyota Motor Corp as the global top seller.
FOCUS ON EUROPE, ASIA
GM sells more than 70 percent of its vehicles outside its home market, led by China. GM now sells more vehicles in China than in the United States.
One remaining weakness has been Europe. GM has said it hopes to break even in its European operations in 2011.
GM's European Opel unit has been a challenge for the automaker since it dropped plans to sell it in 2009. The unit lost $1.3 billion in the first three quarters of 2010.
For GM to keep the U.S. Treasury from losing on its $52 billion bailout, the remaining 33 percent U.S. government stake in GM would have to be sold at about $53 a share.
The stock closed on Wednesday at $34.59, down 3 percent.
Many analysts resumed coverage of GM in late December by setting 12-month share price targets of $42 to $50, citing the restructured automaker's balance sheet.
Some of the glow on GM's future, analysts said, was because of tax losses carry-forwards that are likely to keep GM from having to pay U.S. cash taxes through 2020.
Chris Liddell, the company's chief financial officer, wooed fund managers during GM's IPO roadshow with a promise that the automaker would never again become "a $100 billion pension plan with a small company attached."
As part of Liddell's effort to develop a "fortress balance sheet," GM contributed $4 billion in cash to its U.S. pension plans in December and added another $2 billion in common stock in January.
Aaron Bragman, an analyst with IHS Automotive, said GM's 2010 results would show the success of the controversial bailout of the top U.S. automaker.
"Look how well they've done in what is still essentially a down market" for U.S. auto sales, said Bragman. "There is your proof that the government-sponsored bankruptcy was beneficial."
Bragman said the challenge is for Akerson to keep GM focused on product development to make the turnaround stick.
GM has won over many investors, but it has yet to fully "win the hearts and minds of the U.S. consumers," which is key to sustaining its recovery, he said. (Editing by Richard Chang)