For starters, stocks are following through on 2017's uber-bullish price action. The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 25,000 level for the first time in history this week, and investors are looking to even more upside in the year ahead.

But the best-performing Dow component this year may surprise you.

It's not last year's high-flyer Boeing Co. (BA - Get Report) , or tech giant Apple Inc. (AAPL - Get Report) .

It's serial laggard General Electric (GE - Get Report) .

GE is up around 6.3% year-to-date, outperforming the rest of the market in a big way in the early days of 2018. And as GE's chart shows now, this could just be the beginning of a more sustained upside move in the months ahead.

GE's turn to outperformance may be a little surprising considering this stock's recent price performance, but it makes sense. After lagging the rest of the Dow in a big way for the last year, this is a mean reversion trade.

The last time we looked at GE, the bottom line was that GE was a great company, but an awful stock. Now, GE's still a great company, but it looks as if its stock may finally be turning the corner, too.

To figure out how to trade it, we're turning to the chart for a technical look.

Back in early December, GE had been swatted lower all year long in a parabolic downtrend, and was showing off a bearish descending triangle pattern. The sell signal was a material move through $17.50 support. Only that bearish move never actually materialized. GE spent the intervening weeks hovering right around that $17.50 line in the sand before finally turning higher in the last few trading sessions.

Now, just to be clear, higher ground for the last four or five sessions alone isn't a signal that GE's last year of selling is over. Instead, that turnaround is being signaled by where those recent sessions have left shares.

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The 50-day moving average has acted like a decent proxy for GE's parabolic downtrend all year long, and GE's recent rally has put shares right around that 50-day level this week. Simply put, GE is testing its parabolic trendline resistance level right now -- and a meaningful push above the 50-day means shares are pulling off a change in trend this winter.

If you're considering turning bullish on GE, now's a good time to build a starter position in shares, with plans to scale up to a full-sized position if GE can muster the strength to push through the $19 level.

This could be the start of a big, sustained move in this industrial sector giant.