GM (NYSE:GM), Ford (NYSE:F), Whirlpool (NYSE:WHR) and Commodity Inflation

After the quarterly results of Ford (NYSE:F) and Whirlpool (NYSE:WHR) revealed the increasing prices of commodities are weighing on the results of the companies, the question is generated as to how that may affect General Motors (NYSE:GM) after their recent emergence from bankruptcy.

The one positive for GM was its need to focus strongly on cost controls as they worked on their bankruptcy emergence, which may have them in a stronger operational cost position than their rivals, although that's not a certainty, but a strong probability.

Nicholas Colas, a strategist for ConvergEx Group, said about commodity inflation, "It isn't just Ford. In past recoveries, with big boosts in demand, commodity price inflation did not follow for a couple of years, so you had [a period of] gangbuster demand and low costs.

"But now we have a slow-growth recovery with a lot of inflation in raw materials, food, steel and energy. The philosophical question everybody is struggling with [is] 'in a slow economic recovery with accelerating commodity prices, do cyclical companies experience margin expansion or compression?'"

Another concern for GM is its boost in incentive spending, which across a number of industries has pushed margins and earnings results down.

The miss by Ford has pushed the overall auto sector down, with more concerns being generated from their surprisingly weak performance.

General Motors was trading at $36.10, dropping $0.35, or 0.96 percent, as of 1:08 PM EST. Ford was at $15.51, down $0.39, or 2.42 percent. Whirlpool was trading at $82.72, losing $2.70, or 3.16 percent.