Market Update: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) – IBM Rising on Quantum Computer Unveil; Drexel Likes the ‘Positioning’

[at Barrons.com] – Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) are up 20 cents at $144.33, in a rather down market, following a bit of news from the company about quantum computing. IBM said its “IBM Quantum Experience” computer is “for the first time ever … making quantum computing available to members of the public.” The facility, which IBM says runs on cloud computing technology, is located at the company’s T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York, and people, including researchers and scientists, says IBM, can access it via its cloud-enabled Web interface from desktop and mobile devices. The facility “will allow users to run algorithms and experiments on IBM’s quantum processor, work with the individual quantum bits (qubits), and explore tutorials and simulations around what might be possible with quantum computing,” said IBM. Read more on this. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) , with a current market cap of $138.50B, started the session at $143.36. A quick look at the market, the company’s stock traded between $143.31 and $145.00 and has traded between $116.90 and $174.44 over the past year. IBM (IBM) shares are currently priced at 10.65x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 10.23x earnings multiple for the same period. And for dividend hunters, the company pays shareholders $5.40 per share annually in dividends, yielding 3.70%. Consensus earnings for the current quarter by the 19 sell-side analysts covering the stock is an estimate of $2.88 per share, which would be $0.96 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.55 sequential decrease. Furthermore, our analysis shows the full-year EPS estimate to be $13.53, which would be a $1.39 worse when compared to the last year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $20.04 Billion. If realized, that would be a 3.70% decrease over the year-ago quarter. Recently, Morgan Stanley upgraded IBM from Equal-Weight to Overweight (Feb 18, 2016). Previously, JMP Securities Initiated IBM at to Mkt Outperform. When considering if the stock is under or overvalued, the average price target is $144.05, which is 0.48% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:IBM) Similar Articles: Market Update: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) – IBM launches new cloud services for blockchain Market Update: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) – How IBM’s Watson went from ‘Jeopardy’ champ to business A.I. tool Company Update: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) – IBM Takes Watson Deeper Into Business Computing Field