The cloud will spur IBM

Article Excerpt

IBM $140.56 (New York symbol IBM; Shares o/s: 889.9 million; Market cap: $124.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Divd. yield: 4.6%; www.ibm.com) reported lower-than-expected sales for the first quarter of 2019. That’s mainly because some customers in Asia delayed investments in new systems. As well, sales of its mainframe computers fell 11% from the year-earlier quarter, which benefited from the launch of a new model. IBM’s earnings for the quarter, ended March 31, 2019, fell 11.6%, to $2.01 billion from $2.27 billion a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, per-share profits declined 8.2%, to $2.25 from $2.45. Revenue fell 4.7%, to $18.18 billion from $19.07 billion a year earlier. Even so, IBM’s new cloud businesses (which let users access files and programs stored on remote servers over the Internet) had 12% higher sales. The company expects to earn at least $13.90 per share in 2019. IBM trades at just 10.1 times that forecast, and the shares yield a high 4.6%. IBM is still a..