Stephanie Link, CIO at Hightower, said in a recent program on CNBC that she’s buying International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) shares as she believes in the company’s AI story. She praised the company’s latest quarterly results and said the dip in the stock price was a “gift.”
“Arvind (IBM CEO) did deliver on the growth on the turnaround because he had total revenue growth of 18%, earnings growth of 15%, operating margins of 320 basis points, gross margins of 230 basis points, free cash flow grew 9%. Consulting was fine and better than Accenture and I’ve said that I think they’re taking share. I absolutely think that’s the case. Infrastructure helped by mainframe. I know people don’t pay for that as much because it’s a very cyclical business, but still up 12% in infrastructure. It was software that decelerated that people were nervous about. But I look at Red Hat and I look at the double-digit bookings that they have and the fact that it accelerated to 12% growth. I’m not alarmed at all at the software slowing down from 6 to 3 and a half%. I think down 10% was a gift. I think this is going to be much higher a year from now.”
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