International Business Machines (
IBM
) is higher Tuesday heading into its first-quarter earnings report,
expected out after the market closes.
Currently, the Street is looking for earnings of $2.65 per share on
revenue of $24.77 billion. Numbers compare with EPS of $2.41 and
revs of $24.6 billion reported in the same period last year.
Shares gained 14 percent in the quarter to $208.65 at the end of
March. Shares are 1.3 percent lower since then. IBM gained just
over 27 percent in 2011.
Data from Bloomberg has 14 analysts at Buy, 14 at hold, and one
with a Sell rating. The Street's price target average is $209,
ranging from $192 to $235. IBM traded within a range of $157.13 to
$210.69 over the last year.
Analyst Comments
- JPMorgan sees earnings of $2.60 per share and revs of $24.68
billion. The firm commented: "We do not expect Fx fluctuations to
be as bad as previously feared. As for the business segments, we
expect services and software to be better than expected while
hardware could still be bumpy" Software growth should be about
6.9 percent in the quarter with gross margin of 87.1 percent. On
Software, JPMorgan said, "We believe IBM has the right software
assets in place and thereby there is less risk of a major
software acquisition, which gives IBM the flexibility to deploy
cash elsewhere."
- Goldman Sachs is looking for EPS of $2.63 and revs of $24.72
billion. Goldman is bullish on improving enterprise spending
momentum in the March quarter and continued cost reductions in
services. The firm also noted, "healthy enterprise activity and
tame annual comparisons should enable constant currency services
signings growth of 16% (with double-digit growth in short-term
and long-term signings). Difficult mainframe comps and a sluggish
x86 server market should still serve as revenue headwinds in
1H2012, but we believe this is more than factored into current
investor expectations."
Stay tuned to StreetInsider.com's
EPS Insider
section to see our analysis of the highly-anticipated quarterly
results within seconds of their release. You can also check out
IBM's past performance at Streetinsider's
IBM''s Income Statement
.