How to Buy IBM Stock
International Business Machines Corp
IBM is a information technology service company located in New York, United States, which is part of the Technology sector, and is traded under the ticker IBM on the NYSE exchange.
IBM stock last closed at $168.91, down 8.25% from the previous day, and has increased 34.17% in one year. It has overperformed other stocks in the Information Technology Services industry by 0.19 percentage points. IBM stock is currently +40.12% from its 52-week low of $120.55, and -15.2% from its 52-week high of $199.18.
At the moment, there are 916.74M IBM shares outstanding. The market capitalization of IBM is $154.85B. In the last 24 hours, 16.67M IBM shares were traded.
How to Buy IBM Stock
Wondering how to invest in IBM stock? Here's how.
- Decide where to buy IBM stock: You need to pick an online brokerage, but don't worry - we've analyzed dozens of online brokerages and apps to help you determine where to buy IBM stock.
- Sign up for your brokerage account: Sign up for 0% fee trading with the highest-rated brokerage we've found.
- Deposit funds into your brokerage account: Pick your method of payment and add your details.
- Evaluate IBM stock: The IBM ticker symbol is IBM. Is IBM stock a good investment? Should you buy shares of IBM? How do IBM's underlying business fundamentals look? Do top analysts think IBM is a good buy? Why has IBM's stock price moved recently? (Hint: Our stock market analysis tools can help you understand if IBM is a good stock to buy).
- Make your IBM trade: Decide if you will purchase IBM shares at the current market price or use a limit order to buy IBM stock at a given price.
- Get the latest news on your IBM investment: Create a watchlist to watch your position in IBM shares.
Step 1: Decide where to buy IBM stock
You will need a brokerage account to access the NYSE market and buy IBM shares.
Our favorite brokerage: eToro
Based on our analysis, eToro is the best brokerage. eToro gives you:
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- Security: eToro is a regulated and licensed brokerage platform.
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Open eToro AccountStep 2: Sign up for your brokerage account
Now that you've picked the best brokerage, you need to fill out some personal information so you can invest in IBM today.
How to Start a New Investment Account on eToro
- Click here to get started.eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
- Input your personal info to create a new trading account.
- Submit your info by hitting the "Create Account" button. Get started with eToro today
Step 3: Deposit funds into your brokerage account
Now that you've finished signing up on our top ranked stock trading app, you can securely and quickly fund your account:
Check out the video below for more details depositing money into your brokerage account.
Step 4: Evaluate IBM stock
After you have selected the best place to buy IBM stock, it's crucial to analyze their stock before you invest, so you actually understand the risk as well as the opportunity.
IBM shares at a glance
IBM Due Diligence Checks
WallStreetZen was built to help everyday investors do more in-depth fundamental analysis quickly.
You can see all of the due diligence checks on IBM's stock page.
Is IBM stock undervalued?
You can use a variety of different financial metrics, analyses, models, and charts to gauge IBM's true value.
Using relative valuations methods:
- IBM may be undervalued based on its P/E ratio of 20.5x, relative to Information Technology Services industry P/E ratio of 23.51x
- IBM could be overvalued based on its P/B ratio of 6.87x, relative to Information Technology Services industry P/B ratio of 4.51x
- IBM could be overvalued based on its PEG ratio of 1.7x
You can do additional valuation analysis on IBM's stock here.
IBM Financial Health
Positive Health Checks:
- IBM earnings of $10.29B is not enough to cover its interest payments.
- IBM's operating cash flow of $13.93B allows it to safely service it's debt of $59.94B.
- Total IBM debt is lower than 5 years ago, relative to shareholder equity.
- IBM profit margin has gone up from 2.7% to 12.1% in the past year.
Negative Health Checks:
- There are more long-term liabilities than short-term assets on the IBM balance sheet.
- IBM has a relatively high debt to equity ratio of 5.
- There are more short-term liabilities than short-term assets on the IBM balance sheet.
Is it a good time to buy IBM stock, according to Wall Street analysts?
Out of 11 Wall Street analysts who track IBM, the consensus analyst rating on IBM is a Hold
It's important to keep in mind that analyst ratings are not recommendations, nor are they investment advice.
Latest IBM Analyst Forecasts
David Grossman, a top 16% analyst from Stifel Nicolaus maintains IBM with a strong buy rating and maintains their IBM price target from $190.00 to $190.00, on Apr 17, 2024.
Wamsi Mohan, a top 6% analyst from Bank of America maintains IBM with a strong buy rating and raises their IBM price target from $200.00 to $220.00, on Mar 14, 2024.
Toni Sacconaghi, a bottom 17% analyst from Bernstein maintains IBM with a hold rating and raises their IBM price target from $165.00 to $186.00, on Mar 7, 2024.
Matthew Swanson, a top 38% analyst from RBC Capital maintains IBM with a buy rating and raises their IBM price target from $179.00 to $200.00, on Jan 25, 2024.
RBC Capital's Matthew Swanson raised their price target on IBM (NYSE: IBM) by 11.7% from $179 to $200 on 2024/01/25. The analyst maintained their Buy rating on the stock.
IBM delivered a "solid" quarter with free cash flow well above consensus in spite of Consulting and Software revenue missing estimates, Swanson said in response to the company's 2024/01/24-released Q4 and FY 2023 earnings report.
Management highlighted that the book of business around AI and Watsonx had doubled Q/Q, the analyst added.
Earnings Report
IBM reported:
For Q4 2023:
- EPS of $3.87, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.78 and, by 7.5%, Q4 2022's $3.60.
- Revenue of $17.381B, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $17.279B and, by 4.1%, Q4 2022's $16.690B.
- Free cash flow of $6.1B, up $0.9B Y/Y.
- $1.5B in dividends paid in the quarter.
For FY 2023:
- EPS of $9.62, up 5% Y/Y.
- Revenue of 61.9B. up 2% Y/Y.
- Free cash flow of $11.2B, up $1.9B Y/Y.
For FY 2024, management guided:
- Revenue growth consistent with its mid-single digit model.
- $12B in free cash flow.
Chairman & CEO Arvind Krishna commented: “In Q4, we grew revenue in all of our segments, driven by continued adoption of our hybrid cloud and AI offerings.
"Client demand for AI is accelerating and our book of business for Watsonx and gen AI roughly doubled from Q3 to Q4.
"For the year, revenue growth was in line with our expectations, and we exceeded our free cash flow objective."
Amit Daryanani, a top 4% analyst from Evercore ISI Group upgrades IBM to a buy rating and raises their IBM price target from $165.00 to $200.00, on Jan 19, 2024.
You can dig deeper into what analysts are saying on the IBM stock forecast page.
IBM Momentum
IBM Revenue
Last year, IBM earnings were $7.50B. Over the past 5 year, IBM's earnings have increased by -2.95% per year. This was slower than the Information Technology Services industry average of 8.23%.
Last year, IBM revenue was $61.86B. Over the last 5 year, IBM's revenue has increased by -4.92% per year. This was slower than the Information Technology Services industry average of 7.83%.
You can analyze IBM's earnings and revenue performance here.
Are IBM executives and large shareholders buying or selling the stock?
Over the last 12 months, insiders at IBM have sold more shares than they have bought.
Robert David Thomas, Senior Vice President of IBM, was the latest IBM insider to sell. They sold $284,327.64 worth of IBM shares on Feb 21, 2024.
Learn more about who owns IBM stock here.
Can I rely on IBM as an income stream?
IBM pays a dividend of 3.93%, compared to the Information Technology Services industry's average dividend yield of 2.6%. If you owned $1,000 of IBM stock, you would have received $39.31 last year.
IBM dividend payments have consistently grown over the past decade and have remained stable.
Dig into more analysis about IBM dividend yield and history here.
What others are saying about IBM
One of the reasons eToro is our top-rated brokerage is because of its social trading community.
Click below to find out what other investors have to say.
Step 5: Make your IBM trade
You have two primary types of orders:
- Market order: A market order is an order to buy or sell a security at the best price on the market.
Market orders are generally fine for most investors. - Limit order: A limit order enables you to buy or sell a security at a specific price (or better).
If you want to make sure you're buying or selling at a given price, place a limit order.
Hit the Open Trade button and your broker will place your order.
If you want more help buying stocks on eToro, watch the how to video below:
Step 6: Get the latest news on your IBM investment
Now that you own some IBM shares, you'll want to keep up with your new stock purchase.
Start a watchlist to get alerted to the latest events about your IBM stock.
IBM Feed
How to Buy Stock in IBM
To summarize, here are the 6 steps to buy stock in IBM:
- Decide where to buy IBM stock
- Sign up for your brokerage account
- Deposit funds into your brokerage account
- Evaluate IBM stock
- Make your IBM trade
- Get the latest news on your IBM investment
If you are looking for a brokerage account, eToro is our favorite option.
Get Started with eToro TodayIf you would like to keep tabs on your investment in IBM, add IBM to your watchlist below.
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