Business

IBM buying back billions of shares
by Zuzana Moravcova

There are still some companies out there with financial muscle, said the computer giant IBM Corp. to investors, and approved a multi-billion dollar stock buyback. The company is going to spend $15 billion on share repurchases, in addition to over $400 million left over from a previous authorization. IBM is enabled to take this step after Tuesday's decision by the board of directors, which had authorized a continuation of its massive stock buyback program. Its shares therefore jumped almost 4 percent. The firm's represenatives said that the buyback would raise its earnings for 2008 past Wall Street's prior forecasts, and its aggressive stock repurchases are expected to continue in the coming years. However, the stocks consumer confidence index has fallen in February, according to Conference Board private research group. It has recorded a reading of 75.0 in February, compared to 87.3 in January, and stocks had traded lower in morning trading. The same poll found that confidence of American consumers hit its lowest level since November 1993, disregarding an exception from five years ago, when US forces toppled the government of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "With so few consumers expecting conditions to turnaround in the months ahead, the outlook for the economy continues to worsen and the risk of a recession continues to increase," said the director of the Conference Board's consumer research center, Lynn Franco. This new repurchase authorization appears after I.B.M. reported strong fourth-quarter results in January, and gave a 2008 an expectations-topping outlook, saying growth abroad would repair the American economy, that is slowly becoming weaker. "The market is kind of overcoming negative news, which is potentially a next step toward higher prices," said senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research, Ryan Detrick."At least in the short-term, it's a nice change here."

by Zuzana Moravcova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 2:02 PM