Topic: Growth Stocks

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, April 20, 2012

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., $199.60, New York symbol IBM, reported higher-than-expected earnings for the latest quarter. However, revenue fell short of the consensus estimate. That caused the stock to fall 2% this week. In the three months ended March 31, 2012, the company earned $3.1 billion. That’s up 7.1% from $2.9 billion a year earlier. IBM spent $3.0 billion on share buybacks in the latest quarter. Due to fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share rose 13.0%, to $2.61 from $2.31. Without unusual items, mainly costs to integrate acquisitions, IBM’s earnings per share would have risen 15.4%, to $2.78 from $2.41. On this basis, the latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of $2.65 a share. Revenue rose 0.3%, to $24.7 billion from $24.6 billion. That fell short of the consensus estimate of $24.8 billion. The company continues to see stronger sales of software (up 5.5%) and computer services (up 0.7%). However, computer hardware sales fell 6.7%. IBM gets two-thirds of its revenue from overseas. If…