The company sharply scaled back its earnings forecast for the second quarter and full year, amid troubles for its commercial and consumer finance operations. "Our primary shortfall was a decline in financial services earnings," said GE chairman and chief executive Jeff Immelt. "We knew the first quarter was going to be challenging, but the extraordinary disruption in the capital markets in March affected our ability to complete asset sales and resulted in higher mark-to-market losses and impairments." First-quarter revenues from continuing operations were 42.2 billion US dollars, up eight percent, GE said.