Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[j3pflynn]

Wasn't IBM supposed to release their results before market open today? Anyone heard?
Paul

Edit: In answer to my own question:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&a...
IBM nearly triples Q4 profit at $2.7B

BRIAN BERGSTEIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — IBM Corp.'s fourth-quarter earnings more than doubled and surpassed Wall Street expectations today, continuing a streak of good financial news from technology companies.

In the last three months of 2003, IBM earned $2.7 billion (all figures U.S.), or $1.55 a share, on revenue of $25.9 billion.

Those figures all surged from the comparable period a year earlier, when IBM posted a net profit of $1 billion, or 59 cents per share, on revenue of $23.7 billion.

IBM's earnings from continuing operations were even better — $1.56 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call were expecting $1.50 per share and revenue of $25.0 billion.

IBM's report came less than 24 hours after the technology sector saw strong earnings releases from Apple Computer Inc., Intel Corp. and Yahoo Inc., which all indicated that the long stretch of soft technology spending by businesses may finally be waning.

"We enter 2004 with good momentum," said Sam Palmisano, IBM's chairman and chief executive. "The client buying environment is steadily improving. We are enthusiastic about our prospects for this year and beyond."

IBM signed $17.3 billion in services contracts in the fourth quarter, a big increase over the third-quarter figure of $15 billion. On IBM's last earnings call, in October, the chief financial officer, John Joyce, had said services bookings in the fourth quarter could be around $14 billion, and some analysts even recently predicted that the company would fall short of that number.

"This was a very good quarter for IBM and an encouraging end to a year in which we steadily gained momentum and posted record revenues," Palmisano said.

"The company's performance would not be possible had we not made investments during the downturn and fundamentally repositioned IBM for leadership in the high-value enterprise space, which remains our sole focus."

However, while IBM's revenue rose nine per cent in the fourth quarter, much of that gain resulted from weakness in the U.S. dollar. Without currency fluctuations, the increase would have been just one per cent.

For all of 2003, IBM showed net income of $7.6 billion, or $4.32 per share, on revenue of $89.1 billion. In 2002, net income was $3.6 billion, or $2.06 per share, and revenue was $81.2 billion. That 10 per cent revenue growth would have been 3 per cent without currency fluctuations.

The earnings report from the technology bellwether was originally scheduled to be released next Tuesday afternoon. IBM spokesperson John Bukovinsky said the report was moved up simply because the company had finished preparing its numbers earlier than expected.