News of a potential General Motors merger with rivals like Ford or Chrysler LLC, sent stock in the company up 32 percent in early trading on Monday, October 13 even though analysts expressed skepticism about the benefit of such a move.

A merger, however, could allow GM to bolster its cash holdings while serving to reassure consumers worried about the company's potential collapse. Additionally, a merger could put the company in a stronger bargaining position with the United Auto Workers.

Last week GM stock was trading at a sixty-year low, but reached $6.48 a share by 11 a.m. EDT after closing Friday at $4.89. The rebound was part of an overall rise in the Dow Jones Industry Average of 5.6 percent during the initial hour of trading in response to announcements by the U.S. government and foreign allies of steps to stabilize the world's banking system.

Standard and Poor's issued a statement about a potential GM/Chrysler merger saying, "We would be skeptical that a GM-Chrysler transaction could easily address our primary concern by resulting in a substantial increase of current liquidity for the parties involved."

That note of caution was qualified, however, by the suggestion that such a combination would "dissipate the cloud that presently hangs over even the healthiest North American suppliers."