General Electric Co.’s most important goal is cutting its debt levels, Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp said in his first public comments since the company spooked investors with its third-quarter earnings report last month.

“We have no higher priority right now than bringing those leverage levels down,’’ Culp said in an interview Monday with CNBC. “I think we’ve got plenty of opportunities through asset sales to do that.’’

The company has a “number of options’’ to reduce indebtedness, including asset sales, Culp said. The shares fell to the lowest since 2009 on Nov. 9 after an influential analyst from JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut his price target on to $6, the lowest on Wall Street, citing rising liabilities and a weakening outlook for cash flow following GE’s earnings reports Oct. 30.

Culp’s comments failed to reverse the slide in shares, as GE fell 5 percent to $8.15 at 9:43 a.m. in New York. The shares had tumbled 51 percent this year through last week, the third-biggest drop on the S&P 500 Index.

Credit Suisse Group AG cut its price target on GE to $10 from $12 in a report Monday.

--With assistance from Esha Dey