Updating Harte-Hanks Inc, International Business Machines Corp, Newell Rubbermaid Inc, and Baxter International Inc

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HARTE-HANKS INC. $28 (New York symbol HHS; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 76.9 million; Market cap: $2.2 billion; WSSF Rating: Average) earned $0.39 a share in the fourth quarter of 2006, up 2.6% from $0.38 a year earlier. Strong gains from its direct marketing division offset lower income at its shoppers newspapers unit due to rising paper and postage costs. Revenue rose 4.1%, to $313.2 million from $301.0 million. The company also increased its quarterly dividend 16.7%, from $0.06 a share to $0.07. The new annual rate of $0.28 yields 1.0%. Harte-Hanks is a buy. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. $99 (New York symbol IBM; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.5 billion; Market cap: $148.5 billion; WSSF Rating: Above average) has developed a way to triple the amount of data that computer memory chips can hold. This new process could greatly speed up the transfer of information to and from a computer’s central processing unit, improving overall performance. IBM hopes…