Sam Palmisano posts

Feed

IBM goes on a full-court press

For most of Corporate America, there is only one way to deal with the global slowdown: cut costs.
However, for IBM (NYSE: IBM) there's a very different strategy. Basically, the company wants to capitalize on the hard times. Gutsy, huh?

And, for the long haul, there's a good chance it will make IBM even stronger. This is the message from the company's CEO Sam Palmisano, whose shareholder letter was published yesterday.

Continue reading IBM goes on a full-court press

IBM stock weathers SEC investigation, at least for now

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has weathered the storm about the SEC investigation into its first-quarter earnings disclosure pretty well. Shares of Big Blue have jumped 32 percent over the last six months, keeping pace with other tech heavyweights such as Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) (up 38 percent) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NASDAQ:HPQ) (up 38 percent).

Bloomberg News reports The company said last January that it was facing a formal SEC investigation, which makes the stock performance all that more remarkable. Still, you can bet that the earnings call following the release of earnings on January 18 will be lively. I'm sure analysts will be interested to hear the company's thoughts on technology spending and any update on the investigation.

Wall Street is skeptical that IBM shares will go much higher. Their average target price is $99.67,about where the shares are trading today. Analysts are expecting the Armonk, NY-based company to have earnings of $2.19 on revenue of $25.66 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

IBM is a bellwether for both the tech sector and overall confidence in the economy. Since becoming the head of IBM in January 2003, Sam Palmisano wisely decided that IBM should focus on businesses. He got rid of the underperforming notebook computer division and acquired the consulting business of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC. Some critics of the company have claimed -- wrongly I think -- that IBM makes its hardware and software hard to use so that customers need to hire an IBM consultant to help them out.

Also check out some other earnings reports that we're following, and let us know your thoughts on earnings expectations.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-89.2312,801.23
NASDAQ-23.352,903.88
S&P 500-9.311,342.64

Last updated: February 11, 2012: 10:10 PM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

18.875-0.255(-1.33)

Alcoa

10.29-0.35(-3.29)

Apple Inc

493.42+0.25(+0.05)

Google Inc 'A'

605.91-5.55(-0.91)

Bank of America

8.07-0.11(-1.34)

Wal-Mart Stores

61.90-0.06(-0.10)

Exxon Mobil Corp

83.80-1.08(-1.27)

Ford

12.44-0.25(-1.97)

Citigroup

32.925-0.735(-2.18)

IBM

192.42-0.71(-0.37)

Yahoo

16.14+0.14(+0.88)

Starbucks

48.82-0.38(-0.77)

Microsoft

30.495-0.275(-0.89)

Home Depot

45.33+0.06(+0.13)

DailyFinance Headlines

AOL Business News

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

Page Loaded in 1329016244778 ms.