Trends favour IBM

Article Excerpt

IBM $199.63 (New York symbol IBM; Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $224.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.9%) reported lower-than-expected earnings and revenue for the latest quarter. In the three months ended March 31, 2013, the company earned $3.00 a share before one-time items, up 7.9% from $2.78. The gain was mainly the result of IBM’s ongoing efforts to cut costs and improve productivity. Even so, the latest earnings missed the consensus estimate of $3.05 a share. Revenue fell 5.1%, to $23.4 billion from $24.7 billion. That also fell short of the consensus estimate of $24.6 billion. IBM gets two-thirds of its revenue from overseas. If you adjust for foreign-exchange rates, overall sales would have declined by 3%. Businesses continue to put off signing deals for new computers and related services due to the uncertain economy. But we still like IBM’s long-term outlook as much as ever. It’s in a strong position to profit from several trends,…