International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) will report its fourth-quarter results Tuesday after the market close. Thomson Reuters has consensus estimates of $5.41 in earnings per share (EPS) and $24.77 billion in revenue. In the fourth quarter of the previous year, IBM posted EPS of $6.16 on revenue of $27.70 billion.

IBM only just recently dropped (finally) its goal of $20 EPS by the end of 2015. The company has cut costs endlessly to get there. Also IBM is supposed to be one of the backlog kings, even with that backlog of $128 billion at the end of the last quarter, which was down 7% from a year earlier, and its margin was under pressure as well. However there is a bright side for Big Blue’s 2015 outlook: it is still one of the top spenders in research and development. This is important because companies with large R&D budgets are said to make for some of the soundest long-term investments. Here was our 2015 bullish and bearish outlook for IBM.

Recently analysts have been wary of IBM and the direction it is headed. As we have already noted, it was one of the worst run companies in 2014. Barclays lowered its price target to $155 from $160 and maintained an Equal Weight rating on January 14. Jefferies also lowered its price target to $130 from $144, while maintaining an Underperform rating, on January 12.

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The 50-day moving average currently reads at $160.14 and has been acting as resistance since the middle of December. The 200-day moving average is at $178.69.

Shares of Big Blue were relatively flat at $157.11 just after the opening bell on Tuesday. The company’s stock has a consensus analyst price target of $164.43 and a 52-week trading range of $153.98 to $157.63. IBM has a market cap near $155 billion.

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