IBM’s cloud shift will pay off

Article Excerpt

IBM $124.72 (New York symbol IBM; Shares outstanding: 970.1 million; Market cap: $137.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.2%; www.ibm.com) reported better-than-expected results in its latest quarter. In the quarter ended December 31, 2015, revenue fell 8.5%, to $22.06 billion from $24.11 billion a year earlier. However, that beat the consensus of $22.04 billion. IBM gets 60% of its revenue from outside the U.S., and the higher U.S. dollar hurts the value of these sales. The company continues to expand in fastergrowing areas like cloud computing and analytics software. In the latest quarter, IBM’s cloud and analytics businesses increased their revenue by 16%. That revenue now accounts for 35% of the company’s total. It also helps offset weaker demand for IBM’s consulting services and mainframe computers. The company’s earnings fell 18.6%, to $4.7 billion, or $4.84 a share, from $5.8 billion, or $5.81 The latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of $4.81 a share. IBM will probably earn…