NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - General Electric Co. posted reduced fourth-quarter earnings that met Wall Street forecasts Friday as the conglomerate ended its long streak of improved quarterly results, and the company warned it will fall just short of both year-ago results and current forecasts in the current period.

The company earned $3.1 billion, or 31 cents a share, down from $3.9 billion, or 39 cents, a year earlier, and in line with the forecast of analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call. It marked the first time since the fourth quarter of 1992 that the company reported operating income below year-earlier levels.

Revenue at the company increased 4 percent in the fourth quarter to a record $35.4 billion.

The company said trouble in its plastics and power systems businesses will cause first-quarter earnings to fall between 5 and 10 percent from the year-ago level, when it earned 35 cents a share. That would bring earnings to about 31-to-33 cents a share. The First Call consensus forecast is for earnings per share of 34 cents, with a range of estimates from 30 to 39 cents.

But the company said it expects to be able to earn between $1.55 and $1.70 a share for the full year, up from the $1.51 a share it earned in 2002. The First Call consensus forecast is for full-year earnings of $1.62 a share, with a range of forecasts from $1.55 to $1.65.

Shares of GE (GE: down $0.25 to $24.78, Research, Estimates), a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, were slightly lower in morning trading Friday.

GE pegged the decline in results to its Employers Reinsurance Corporation unit, which GE said was hit by poor underwriting in past years that resulted in much higher losses. Without an increase in reserves to cover those losses the company said fourth-quarter earnings per share would have risen to 45 cents a share, and full-year EPS would have reached $1.65. The GE Global Insurance division posted an $1.5 billion operating loss, compared with a $25 million loss a year earlier. But the company said it believes the problems are behind it and it expects the unit to earn between $300 million and $400 million in 2003.

GE's consumer products and power systems also saw reduced earnings in the period, as income at consumer products fell 32 percent to $139 million, and power systems income fell 16 percent to $1.4 billion.

The company was also hurt by continued weakness in the aviation industry, as aircraft engine income edged up only 1 percent to $561 from the year-earlier period that immediately followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and its Aviation Services finance arm saw income fall 4 percent to $98 million. The company cut estimates on its exposure to the bankruptcies at US Airways Group and United Airlines by $200 million at each carrier.