IBM To Tech’s Rescue (IBM, CSCO, HPQ, MSFT, DELL, INTC)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 14, 7:50AM EST

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IBM (IBM) has come out raised guidance this morning on strong international orders. Big Blue put earnings at $2.80 EPS, and the First Call estimate was $2.60 EPS. and revenues came in at $28.9 Billion versus a $27.8 Billion estimate.

The revenues included a 6-point jump in currency benefits. These numbers were led by strong performance in Asia, Europe and emerging countries. What is perhaps more important than if this is just overseas is that this is acting to help almost anything related to technology in early trading.

Sam Palmisano is also telegraphing the future is not going to hell in a hand basket as well:

“IBM is well-positioned as we begin 2008 as a result of our global business reach, solid recurring revenue stream and strong financial position. We are on track to achieve our long-term earnings-per-share roadmap objective in 2010.”

Shares of IBM closed at $96.67 on Friday and shares are up roughly 7% in pre-market trading at $105.00 with just under two hours to go before the market opens. The 52-week trading range is $88.77 to $121.46, so shares had slid about 20% off of highs.

This is really helping technology after a miserable Friday: Cisco Systems (CSCO) +2.4%; Microsoft (MSFT) +1.5%; Intel (INTC) +1.9%; Hewlett Packard (HPQ) +1.7%; Dell (DELL) +1.9%.

IBM will release more detailed numbers and more detailed guidance on its normally scheduled earnings on January 17, 2008. Apparently someone is tired of day in and day out selling when their business is still strong.

Jon C. Ogg
January 14, 2008

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.