Market Update (NYSE:IBM): Stock Market Showdown: IBM, Microsoft Storm the Cloud

[US News & World Report] – Once upon a high-tech time, dear readers, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) was the undisputed ruler of the personal computer roost. Then came — gasp — the poison Apple (AAPL), at least so far as both companies were concerned. The late Steve Jobs, true to his brash forecasts, led Apple in upending IBM from its desktop dominance with a slew of sexy iMacs and MacBooks. Read more on this. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) , with a current market cap of $143.87B, opened this morning at $149.06. Looking at today’s market, IBM one day range is $148.12 to $149.99 and has traded between $116.90 and $176.30 over the past year. IBM shares are currently priced at 10.99x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 9.39x forward p/e ratio. And for those looking to make a return holding the stock, the company pays shareholders $5.20 per share annually in dividends, yielding 3.47%. In a review of the consensus earnings estimate this quarter, 20 sell-side analysts are looking at $2.08 per share, which would be $0.83 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.87 sequential decrease. What we find to be interesting is that the full-year EPS estimate of $13.49 is a $1.43 worse when compared to the previous year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is predicated on a consensus revenue forecast of $18.25 Billion. If reported, that would be a 6.84% decrease over the year-ago quarter. In terms of ratings, Morgan Stanley upgraded IBM from Equal-Weight to Overweight (Feb 18, 2016). Previously, JMP Securities Initiated IBM at to Mkt Outperform. The average price target for IBM shares by the analysts covering the stock is $136.18, which is 8.64% below where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:IBM) Similar Articles: Stock Update: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) – IBM Opens Bluemix Garage in Europe to Fuel Cloud Development Stock Update: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) – IBM Announced New Cloud Unit for Its Recent Cloud Acquisitions Market Update: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) – CSC Embraces IBM Cloud to Accelerate Hybrid Cloud Adoption