US President Barack Obama has hailed the return of General Motors,GM, to the US stock exchange. Leaving for NATO Summit at Lisbon, Obama said at a special White House briefing that one of the toughest tales of the global economic recession had taken a big step towards becoming a success story. He said GeneralMotors relaunched itself as a public company, cutting theGovernment’s stake in the company by nearly half. Noting that auto-makers are in the midst of the strongest period of job growth in more than a decade, Obama said since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, the industry has created more than 75,000 new jobs.