Mr. Oppenheimer said investors should wait to buy more of International Business Machines’ stock because it is not making good progress toward its financial goals. The investment firm downgraded IBM’s results from outperform. The company has not set a target price for its stock price. “It will take more time for our bullish thesis to materialize and we expect the stock to remain range-bound in the short term,” analyst Param Singh said in a note to clients on Tuesday. “As such, we are downgrading IBM to Perform at this time.” IBM plunged 25% on Tuesday, the worst day in stock history after the software and hardware company reported weaker-than-expected preliminary second-quarter results. The company reported preliminary adjusted earnings of $2.93 per share on revenue of $17.2 billion, significantly below FactSet consensus estimates of earnings of $3.01 per share and revenue of $17.86 billion. The full earnings report was scheduled to be released on July 22nd. Oppenheimer said IBM’s failure to meet the standards could impact the company’s ability to meet its full-year financial goals, a fact that could further depress the stock price. “While there have been some bright spots (RedHat, HashiCorp, Confluent, Server/Storage), it will be difficult for IBM to meet its full-year targets or achieve ‘double-digit’ growth in CC software in CY26/27,” Singh wrote. Mr. Oppenheimer’s call runs counter to Wall Street consensus. Of the 26 analysts who own IBM, only nine rate it a “hold,” while 16 rate it a “buy” or “strong buy,” according to LSEG data. The stock price has fallen nearly 27% since the beginning of the year.
