Topic: Growth Stocks

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, January 21, 2011

Article Excerpt

PLEASE NOTE: In next week’s Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline, we’ll reveal our #1 U.S. pick for 2011. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., $155.50, New York symbol IBM, reported better-than-expected earnings this week, thanks to rising demand for its mainframe computers, software and computer services. The company earned $14.8 billion in 2010. That’s up 10.5% from $13.4 billion in 2009. IBM spent $15.4 billion on share buybacks in 2010. Because of fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share rose 15.1%, to $11.52 from $10.01. That beat the consensus earnings estimate of $11.44 a share. Revenue rose 4.3% in 2010, to $99.9 billion from $95.8 billion in 2009. That was higher than the consensus revenue estimate of $99.0 billion. IBM signed $22.1 billion of new service contracts in the fourth quarter of 2010. That’s up 18% from a year earlier. On December 31, 2010, IBM’s order backlog was $142 billion, or 1.4 times its annual revenue. The stock has gained 23.9% since we made IBM our Wall…