Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, October 19, 2018

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., $129.10, New York symbol IBM, is one of the world’s largest computer companies, with operations in over 175 countries. The company reported better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter of 2018. However, its revenue missed expectations, which caused the stock to fall 8% this week. In the three months ended September 30, 2018, IBM’s overall earnings rose 2.9%, to $3.13 billion from $3.26 billion a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, per-share profits gained 4.9%, to $3.42 from $3.26. Those figures exclude unusual items such as costs related to recent acquisitions, changes to IBM’s employee pension plans and items related to the new U.S. tax code. On that basis, the latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of $3.40 a share. However, IBM’s revenue in the quarter dipped 2.1%, to $18.8 billion from $19.2 billion a year earlier. That missed the consensus estimate of $19.1 billion. If you factor out exchange rates, revenue was unchanged. The revenue decline was mainly due to…