Market Briefs:Morgan Stanley,IBM,Intel

On Morgan Stanley,I think the Citigroup number has emboldened the analysts to get a little more bullish on this sector,noted CNBC's popular host Jim Cramer.It's a real strong story that has just sold off.People want Morgan Stanley and that nice,smooth Gorman uptrend,and these guys at Goldman Sachs didn't give it to you.*
IBM was downgraded at Citi.Enough is Enough.This company is gonna have a better 2015 than 2014.They are motivated because they screwed up.It's been a great value play since December.*
Yahoo-there's tax issues.I don't think Yahoo's worth nothing.I think there have been some changes,but that's not why people want to own it.They want to own it because of Yahoo's stake in Alibaba.*
Mastercard and Visa-I like these companies because the transition from paper to plastic isn't done,belive it or not.There are countries still doing that.*
These guys in my class are retiring left and right.Ballmer got tired,but I'm still with it.*
Whirlpool is a nice turnaround story.I like the management-they're very good,the Maytag acquisition.*
Intel's profit exceeded estimates.I like the quarter.The company's finally spending less money;expenses are coming down;"We're not afraid of the 200.00 PC." I think you buy Intel here.You could get a dividend increase."We don't fear the low end of the market." I like that,said Jim Cramer,who has a law degree and indeed shows no signs of tiring out.*
Intel(INTC),Mastercard(MC),Visa(V),Morgan Stanley(MS),Whirlpool(WHR)

IBM Is Hiring

IBM has some questions for job seekers.Can you identify trends?Can you think strategically?Are you an innovator?Are you ready to make the world work smarter?Are you an IBMer?
IBM Global Business Services is holding an Invitational Hiring Event on Friday,September 7 from 10am to 4pm in Arlington,Virginia.For a list of openings and to apply to attend,please visit IBMexpo.com
International Business Machines(IBM)

IBM Jobs and Culture

IBM has some questions for you:
Can you identify trends?
Can you think strategically?
Are you an innovator?
Are you ready to make the world work smarter?
ARE YOU AN IBMer?
IBM Global Business Services is holding a Recruitment Open House on Thursday,February 16 from 10am-3pm at
The Westin BWI
1743 West Nursery Rd.
Linthicum,MD 21090
For a list of openings and to pre-register,visit IBMexpo.com
Culture:Hard work.Over the past decade,IBM employees have made some interesting observations about their corporate lives that give one impressions of the ambience there.For example,the company doesn't seem to care what hours you work,as long as you meet deadlines and are on budget.Indeed,working at home is often permitted.
You get 2-3 weeks vacation a year.Whether you take it or not is up to you.
Salaries are at a standard level.
You are rated on your commitment to the business on a numerical scale,with 1 being the best grade,and 4 being grounds for dismissal.It is common for people to put in 70 hours a week-including Saturdays-and there is no overtime pay.There's no time for clock-watching there.
Employees over and over again note the high quality of their co-workers.They are considered to be top notch tech pros,the best in class.
0n a scale of 1-5,with 5 being the best grade,many employees rated their jobs as between a 3 and a 5.These generally feel the experience is mostly positive and are glad to work for IBM,looking at the big picture.Workers in India repeatedly praised the understanding management and work/life balance.
As of 2011,about 368,000 people worked at IBM worldwide.Five of them have received Nobel Prizes for their achievements.The company is a virtual patent mill.IBM's products and services are highly regarded by their customers.
The overall impression is,it's a high-powered environment,similar to that found in other large and successful companies.After all,you don't get to where IBM is by goofing around.They're prestigious for a reason.
International Business Machines(IBM)

Big Blue News:Rometty Begins IBM CEO Tenure

There has been very positive feedback so far to Ginni Rometty's accession to the CEO position at IBM on January 1.She has already filled the position she previously held at IBM,Senior Vice President and Group Executive,IBM Sales,Marketing and Strategy,as well as another Senior Vice President opening.I absolutely think she's capable of filling her predecessor Sam Palmisano's shoes to lead a nearly 400,000 employee firm,said Brad Zelnick,a Senior Analyst at Macquarie Capital.
Born in 1958,Ms.Rometty began her IBM career in 1981.She was number seven on Fortune magazine's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2011,and has made the list for seven consecutive years.Ms.Rometty has a B.S. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering with honors from Northwestern University,and serves on the University's Board of Trustees.
IBM is very well-positioned to perform against any number of economic backdrops,Mr.Zelnick feels.It has consistently reinvented itself.In the end,it comes down to intellectual property.IBM spends six billion dollars a year on R&D,as opposed to Oracle's four billion.The company is the number one U.S. Patent Office awardee.
We expect IBM to continue consolidating the software industry.It has roughly 12 billion more to spend on that,to acquire and drive that growth agenda.
We think IBM's road map is conservative.The stock is worth considerably more than what it trades for.Warren Buffett invested in it,and he isn't known for tech investing,Mr.Zelnick pointed out.
International Business Machines(IBM),Oracle(ORCL)

IBM's Chances of Reaching Its Goal

IBM beat on Q3 earnings,logging earnings per share of 3.28 versus an estimate of 3.22;on revenue,Big Blue was at 26.2 billion dollars,versus an estimate of 26.3.The company raised its full year guidance from 13.25 to 13.35 per share.It's pretty much in line with what we were expecting,said analyst Joe Foresi of Janney Montgomery Scott.
On services,IBM had some pretty positive revenue.About 50% of their revenue comes from the services business.It consists of long term,annuity type contracts.
They do a lot of work in the emerging markets,which should help balance any loss in Europe.Given the size of IBM,it's more of a tanker than a speed boat.There's cautious optimism in their guidance.
We have a price target for them of 199.00.If you look over the short term,there will be swings up and down;but over the long term,the fundamentals are certainly there for their 20.00 earnings per share goal within five years,in Joe Foresi's opinion.
IBM's shares fell sharply following its report release,on traders' fears that a global recession could hamper its profitability.
International Business Machines(IBM)

The Big Shift:Hewlett-Packard's Bet

CEO Leo Apotheker(pronounced "Ahpotayker")is moving Hewlett-Packard to an IBM model of software and services,says Scott Kessler,head of tech research at Standard&Poor's.It's gonna be uphill.It's gonna be very difficult to sell the pc business.Can they really be competitive in software?
HP is saying they don't want to be in pcs,tablets or smartphones.They are selling the Web OS operating system.HP is known at its core for its printer business.It's really gonna be a challenge to unload that.
This really is a sea change in tech.Google is getting into hardware,while HP is leaving it.These moves will have impacts for years to come,although attention has been focused on the financial markets recently,Mr.Kessler observed.
Carly Fiorina,who led HP from 1999-2005,thinks the current board has a lot of diverse experience and luminaries from the Silicon Valley.The board made a serious and substantial decision about the future.HP is a company with a very deep core competency in managing complexity.
HP is the largest tech company in the world,with more than 100,000 employees.The CEO is never the company;he is the leader of the company.It's all about the people and the systems and the culture of the company.Preparing a company for the future sometimes requires making a big bet.HP has been buying software companies.This isn't a totally new development,but they're making a big bet on unstructured data.
It's up to the people at HP to explain this and make it work.Anytime the stock drops like that,it places pressure on people-there's no question.They are doubling down in the enterprise space,former CEO Carly Fiorina pointed out.
UBS has cut its rating on HP from buy to neutral,lowering its price target to 26.00.
Hewlett-Packard(HPQ),International Business Machines(IBM)

Why Intel Did Better

Intel's chips are used in 80% of the world's computers.Its Q2 results show that people and companies are investing in technology,Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith says.The enterprise market came back.They saw server and notebook sales strong.The IP network centers invested in posting information in the cloud.
Intel sees tablets as being a complimentary market.They saw nice growth in netbook sales and great growth in notebook.They think they're gonna be very well represented in tablets.
Intel's success is a combination of the strength of their product lines and their hard work to reduce their expenses.They're still really excited about the investment they're making in China.They saw that China over Q2 was a little stronger than normal seasonal patterns by the end of the quarter.China will be Intel's largest market in the world,Mr.Smith predicted.
Another tech titan,IBM,posted earnings per share that were greater than estimates,but,unlike Intel,reported revenue that missed the estimates of Wall Street analysts.Texas Instruments followed suit.
Intel(INTC),International Business Machines(IBM),Texas Instruments(TXN)

Jobs Alert:IBM Still Hiring

Are you an IBMer?If so,Big Blue is looking for you.If you can identify trends,think strategically,innovate and are ready to make the world work smarter,attend the IBM Global Business Services Open House on Tuesday,July 27 at
Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner
1700 Tysons Boulevard
McClean,VA 22102
For a list of openings and to pre-register,visit IBMexpo.com

IBM Has Openings

IBM is looking for workers.They are asking a number of questions.Can you identify trends and think strategically?Are you an innovator,and are you ready to make the world work smarter?Are you an IBMer?The IBM Global Business Services open house will be held at two locations this week:
Wednesday,May 26 from 10am-4pm
Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City
1250 S.Hayes Street
Arlington,VA 22202
Thursday,May 27 from 10am-4pm
BWI Marriott
1743 West Nursery Rd.
Linthicum,MD 21090
For a list of openings and to pre-register,visit IBMexpo.com

Q4 Success Stories

A number of companies did manage to improve their year over year profits in Q4 2008.They include Colgate-Palmolive,Amazon,Heinz,Hershey's,Netflix and Verizon Communications.Colgate-Palmolive even raised its dividend,as did Coca-Cola and 3M.General Electric cut its dividend recently,but it is still above average at over 4%.As of last Friday,only IBM had an increased share price,of all the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for 2009.

Top Performers

The top performers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for Q1 2008 were IBM,up 7.04%;Caterpillar,up 5.73%;and Wal-Mart,up 5.15%.All are still well-regarded.

Purchasing Managers Graph Slowing Economy

The Institute for Supply Management,a U.S. buyers' trade group,has released its Purchasing Managers Index for September.The manufacturing sector index fell to 52 in September from 52.9 in August,but had been expected to reach 52.5 at a minimum.This indicates continuing ecconomic growth,but at a slower pace than was previously believed.The ISM manufacturing index surveys more than 350 companies.In September,new orders fell to 53.4,down from 55.3 in August.The production index dropped to 54.6 from 56.1.The ISM service sector index for September depicts a similar scene,although it is more significant to the U.S. economy,which is predominantly service-oriented.The September reading was 54.8,down from 55.8 in August.New orders declined to 53.4 from 57.Inventories plummeted from 57 to 50,on account of the decline in orders.These are not recessionary numbers,but seem to support a gentle landing scenario at this late phase of the business cycle.The ISM manufacturing index was seconded by the factory orders report,which showed a drop of 3.3%,versus an expected fall of 2.4%.Investors are looking to multinationals such as IBM or exchange-traded funds such as the iShares Trust FTSE/Xinhua China 25 index(FXI) to get beyond the U.S. slowdown.