Friday, July 16, 2004

WSJ.com - IBM Posts 17% Increase in Earnings

WSJ.com - IBM Posts 17% Increase in Earnings: "International Business Machines Corp. reported a 17% earnings gain for the second quarter and issued a confident business outlook, contrasting with cautious recent predictions from other information-technology companies.
Revenue at the world's largest information-technology concern rose 7%, boosted by currency translations and strong sales of mainframes and other business computers that have been taking shares away from rivals.
IBM's chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, said the company remains comfortable with analysts' estimates for the full year. According to Thompson First Call, analysts expect full-year earnings of $4.95 a share, up 14% from $4.35 a share last year.
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This causes a sigh of relief among investors because there were no comments about seeing a slowdown," said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein."

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