IBM Stock Hits All-Time High

(Reuters) - Shares of International Business Machines Corp hit a lifetime high on Wednesday as analysts welcomed the tech giant's commitment to double its profit by 2015.

IBM shares rose as much as 3.3 percent to $167.72, their highest level on record adjusted for stock splits, as a host of analysts raised their target price on the company, the day after it reaffirmed its ambitious 2015 earnings target.

The optimism was limited to IBM. Shares of rivals Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co all fell.

In May last year, the company forecast it would roughly double its profit to at least $20 per share by 2015 as it pushes further into emerging markets and lucrative services and software businesses.

The company held to that plan in a meeting with analysts on Tuesday. Progress has been faster than anticipated in some key areas, notably acquisitions, RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani said in a note.

Daryanani, who raised his target price on the shares to $176 from $165, said the investor day showed IBM's plan remains intact, which is a positive for shareholders.

"IBM has numerous arrows in its quiver to meet its long-term EPS guidance, with substantial financial flexibility," Bank of America Merrill Lynch said. The brokerage raised its target price on IBM shares by $10 to $190.

IBM shares were up $4.42, or 2.7 percent, to $166.70 in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das and Tim Dobbyn)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[earthboy]

12:19 PM on 03/10/2011

Learn to speak Chinese.

[GrumpyOldGeek]

11:44 PM on 03/09/2011

It helps when the 1956 anti-trust consent decree expired and prices were reduced well below the competition and more and more of the product line is now proprietary or patented. Never mind that the Obama justice department hasn't focused much on antitrust enforcement.

Then there's selling off your once US labor-intensive manufacturing of printers, PC's, and other high-volume products. Increasing software development in India, Germany, Israel, and Japan doesn't hurt, either. Oh yeah, no more domestic sales reps and software support staff, either. Self service on the web or the few phone support lines that remain is all the rage, you know. IBM has also had a record year of mergers and acquisitions. Some were acquired to settle lawsuits. Really. They actually say this on their web site.

When stock prices and profits define the behavior of any company and they seem to be pretty good at managing these numbers, it's probably a good investment to buy a few shares. It's up to you to balance the pros and cons.

All in all, though, IBM remains high up on the list of quality, reliability, and service. And prices are getting to be more competive.

[blueken]

11:52 AM on 03/10/2011

I have been a True Blue IBM IT guy for 20 years. The selling and re-selling of their printer division has had mixed results. The tight intergration of printers and servers ain't what it used to be now that third parties do most of the design and manufacture. IBM used to sell soloutions, now it looks like they want into the commodity business. I'm just glad I'm at the end of my carreer and not the beginning. I miss the days of competant service reps. Now your lucky to have one guy per state.

[GrumpyOldGeek]

10:15 PM on 03/10/2011

I'm one of those thousands of solution designers and implementors that no longer work for IBM as employees. Most of these jobs were outsourced in the late 80's and into the 90's. Employees were encouraged to retire early and the competent service reps were encouraged to become independent contractors and/or IBM business partners. I spent a few years subcontracting under IBM Services contracts. Then I changed into a business partner who has developed several commercial software products specifically written to leverage current IBM technologies. Simple: the more software that runs on IBM platforms, more platform sales for IBM.

Now that their consent decree has expired, IBM has aggressively gone toward increasing software sales for their own stuff. This, and the tanked economy, has pretty much destroyed my business.

If you have an IBM mainframe (z and earlier) and your top systems guru doesn't seem to be such a great guru (or he's retired), I'm your guy. I'm way over-qualified for systems programming and mentoring type work, but this is where my heart lies. I love the challenge of solving unsolvable problems and resolving long-standing performance and throughput issues.

I don't own anything in the short-lived Aptiva brand, but my gateway/firewall box is a 330mhz Pentium that I bought way back in 1990. It has been up and running in its current incarnation for over 10 years now, nonstop. Linux, though. I don't like to spend a dime that ends up in Bill Gates' pocketbook.

[hu.man]

07:39 PM on 03/09/2011

"All-time high" means since inception and IBM has been around a LONG time. It was once written off as a has-been company defeated by Microsoft. It has remade itself since. IBM is a force to be reckoned with in IT. They are accomplishing this feat without attracting any attention and doing it under the radar so speak. Kudos to IBM and its management.

[hangdogit]

10:42 PM on 03/09/2011

Kudos to IBM employees -- they do the work.

[Silent1NoMore1]

04:59 PM on 03/10/2011

Yes..the ones in India and China.

[national-juris-solutions]

06:00 PM on 03/09/2011

I have owned many IBM computers in the past.They have one of the best customers service around.Computers last forever.I still own one that I bought in 1992.

http://www.nattionaljurissolutions.com

[GrumpyOldGeek]

12:04 AM on 03/10/2011

I am an ex-IBM employee. In fact, I announced the original IBM PC at several local seminars and customer groups. I even have a picture (somewhere) of the actor who played Charlie Chaplin in the original ads and me.

I have bought a hundred computers over the years and even built a few from parts. My original IBM PC and my PC Junior (remember that one?) still work. I've only had three computers fail for me since 1981. All three were IBM boxes. None of the other has ever failed. Wait. I take that back partially. I had a bearing start to go in a hard drive but replaced it before it totally died.

I really didn't appreciate it when I saw an ad on the TV machine that started out by saying "hard drives fail all the time". My letter along with dozens from hard drive manufacturers got that ad changed within a couple of days.

You're almost right when you claim that PC's just keep on running and don't fail.

As an IBM mainframe specialist for over 35 years now, I can say that IBM mainframes and their operating systems not only stay up and running, the concept of "rebooting" to clean things up or complete a phase of installing or updating software is completely foreign in the mainframe environment. It's not unusual to go without a "reboot" for months or even years at a time. Not even for backups or new versions of software.

[blueken]

11:55 AM on 03/10/2011

I just retired an Aptiva this year. It was still running Windows 95 upgrade version. The only reason I retired it was we are converting to an ASP and we were kind of doubtfull old faithfull could meet connectivity specs.

[Andy49]

04:27 PM on 03/09/2011

The rise in stocks is a troubling thing. It would not be if the economy was not in such poor shape. Ya Ya, I know that employment is up but so are food prices and my last tank of gas was at $3.80+ a gallon. Those who have more money than brains are again in it for a quick buck and others are now joining the rush to get their share of the new up market. When it adjusts to what it should be will the taxpayer be on the hook to bail out the banks that just screwed up again, this time in the commodity markets.

[mizutofu]

04:55 PM on 03/09/2011

money spent to buy stocks is money not spent to buy commodities, so if stock market goes down, look for commodities price to skyrocket

[Andy49]

06:33 PM on 03/09/2011

I added the commodity markets error. I was thinking about another thread and added it by mistake. The commodity markets are also in a major climb and that also smells bad. I believe in capitalism but when it hurts people and causes deaths as is now happening with the catastrophic rise in grain prices, except rice, that does not make sense.

[SisterAnn]

09:54 PM on 03/09/2011

All we need to know is our leaders love profits and hate taxes.

Profits go into their pockets. Taxes pay for silly stuff like schools and jails.

[bcunnin679]

09:07 AM on 03/10/2011

What deaths has it caused?

[clytemnestra slays]

04:26 PM on 03/09/2011

as you know it will spend some time backing and filling and then keep going up....of course we are facing headwinds with high oil prices, and the market is due for a breather

[katooom]

03:55 PM on 03/09/2011

go big blue go. Almost sold @162. Where is the next top?

[earthboy]

12:20 PM on 03/10/2011

Tou mean Big Red? IBM is a Chinese corporation.