Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, October 18, 2019

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., $134.09, New York symbol IBM, is one of the world’s largest computer company, with operations in over 175 countries. On July 9, 2019, IBM completed its acquisition of Red Hat Inc. (New York symbol RHT). At $34 billion, the deal is the biggest acquisition in the company’s 108-year history. Red Hat is a leading developer of software for cloud-based computing systems. (Cloud systems let users access computer programs online and store files on a company’s remote servers.) Its programs use the open-source Linux operating system. That lets Red Hat adapt its software to work on a wide variety of computer-hardware systems. If you exclude costs related to that purchase and other unusual items, IBM earned $2.39 billion in the three months ended September 30, 2019. That’s down 23.6% from $3.13 billion a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share declined at a slower rate of 21.6%, to $2.68 from $3.42. Even so, that beat the consensus…