These top techs still have room to rise

Article Excerpt

The outlook for these three technology giants remains bright. Each of them is a market leader, and their strong balance sheets will let them keep developing new products and services. Moreover, they continue to buy back shares and increase their dividends. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. $147 (New York symbol IBM, Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 925.8 million; Market cap: $136.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 4.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ibm.com) is one of the world’s largest computer companies, with operations in over 175 countries. Due to slowing demand for its traditional mainframe computers and related services, IBM is aggressively shifting into faster-growing fields. They include cloud computing services (the storage of files and programs using the Internet) and analytics software (including its Watson supercomputer) to process increasingly large amounts of data. In the three months ended June 30, 2018, overall earnings rose 2.7%, to $2.83 billion from $2.76 billion a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, per-share profits…