By Tom Groenfeldt, Contributor The Singapore Exchange (SGX) has moved its clearing and settlement operations from an IBM mainframe running zOS to commodity Linux servers to improve the post-trade services and achieve straight-through processing. The result was a 100 percent improvement in online performance and a 50 percent reduction in the time it took to batch process transactions.
Tag Archives: IBM
Avnet Technology Solutions Americas Introduces Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Solution Fe
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Avnet Technology Solutions Americas Introduces Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Solution Featuring IBM and Brocade Technology
Avnet accelerates resellers’ mid-market data center and storage sales in the U.S. and Canada by providing a secure, cost-effective way to protect data
TEMPE, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Avnet Technology Solutions, the global IT solutions distribution leader and an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), today unveiled a new data protection solution for IBM business partners in the U.S. and Canada. The solution enables partners to address the disaster recovery and business continuity challenges of their mid-market customers, while further enhancing their data center and storage offerings. The new offering combines services from Avnet with industry-leading software and hardware from IBM and Brocade. The solution offers unique data replication features that securely and efficiently transport critical business data to remote sites over any distance.
“While companies recognize that disaster recovery and business continuity plans are critical, they can be resource intensive to implement,” said Mark Martin, vice president of business development and marketing, Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas, IBM Solutions group. “Avnet worked with IBM and Brocade to design a cost-effective, secure solution that helps mid-market enterprises protect their data and information assets. With this solution, our partners will be able to competitively differentiate themselves and drive additional storage sales by offering a solution that addresses their customers’ technology and financial issues.”
With this solution, partners will be able to provide their customers with the ability to restart processing in their back-up data centers at the point of disruption. Instead of locating and loading back-up files, a customer’s remote data center can immediately continue transactions from the most current point reached at the primary data center, saving time and improving customer service.
The solution can be customized to meet the unique needs of end customers. The baseline offering includes the IBM Storwize V7000 controller, remote mirroring software, and IBM/Brocade SAN06B routers (which include encryption, data compression and bandwidth management). This technology is enhanced with services from Avnet, including the installation and implementation of the solution and overall project management. The services from Avnet complement partners’ services offerings, enabling them to expand their IT services capabilities or obtain additional bench strength when needed.
“Our mid-market customers struggle with disaster recovery and business continuity,” said Chris Mierzwa, vice president of storage solutions, Sirius Computer
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/12/avnet-technology-solutions-americas-introduces-dis/
IBM drives flash technology deeper into the enterprise to speed big data analytics
IBM Invests $1 Billion in Flash Technology
By Chris Neiger, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
IBM just launched a $1 billion initiative to build and test Flash technology for enterprise solutions. The company said that Flash is already an integral part of consumer products, and that the technology could help companies tackle Big Data challenges.
IBM said in a press release statement that Flash could reduce transaction times for banking, trading and telecommunications by up to 90%, and batch processing times by up to 85%. The company also said its Flash technology could reduce energy consumption by up to 80% in data centers.
“Because it contains no moving parts, the technology is also more reliable, durable, and more energy efficient than spinning hard drives,” the company stated in the release.
IBM will spend the $1 billion to develop and design Flash solutions for servers, storage systems, and middleware. The company plans to set up 12 “Centers of Competency” around the world to run proof-of-concept scenarios for companies, using real-world data.
The company plans to build the centers in China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, South America, U.K., and the U.S., and will be operational by the end of this year.
The article IBM Invests $1 Billion in Flash Technology originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Chris Neiger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of International Business Machines. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/news-ibm-invests-1-billion-in-flash-technology/
IBM bets $1 billion on Flash storage
The hard drive will soon be dead, at least for most uses in the enterprise, IBM is betting. The company is undertaking a major strategic initiative — and US$1 billion in research — to make flash the prominent form of storage in most organizations.
IBM has launched a line of Flash-based storage systems, called FlashSystem, based on technologies IBM acquired when it purchased Texas Memory last year. The company will also open 12 centers around the globe that will help customers prototype flash systems as well as answer their questions about the technology.
A set of FlashSystems could be configured into a single rack capable of storing as much as 1 petabyte of data, capable of producing 22 million IOPS (input/output operations per second). Getting that same level of storage and throughput from a hard drive system would require 315 racks of high performance disks, Mills explained. Thanks to technology developed by Texas Memory, the eMLC (enterprise multilevel chip) flash chips that these systems use have an average lifetime of 30,000 write/erase cycles, far more than the 1,000 to 3,000 cycles that consumer grade MLCs offer.
FlashSystem joins IBM‘s other flash and flash and disk hybrid storage systems, including the IBM Storwize V7000, IBM System Storage DS8870 and the IBM XIV Storage System.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2033871/ibm-bets-1-billion-on-flash-storage.html#tk.rss_all
IBM to invest $1B in flash memory development
After its buyout of Texas Memory Systems, IBM is now the latest on the vendor bandwagon to push flash into the data centers, saying it will invest a whopping $1 billion into flash research.
Ground Control to Amazon: "Seattle, We Have a Problem"
By Asit Sharma, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Before reporting its fourth quarter earnings at the end of January, Amazon.com was valued at approximately 3,500 times trailing 12-month earnings. This is a fascinating statistic, the magnitude of which is difficult at first to grasp. Suppose that you took a profitable tech company like Cisco Systems, which makes $9 billion in profit from $47 billion in revenue, and represented its P/E ratio of 12 as an extremely tall building — say the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Apples to apples, how much higher would Amazon’s building be? You would have to stack an equivalent of 290 Giza Pyramids, all the way into the stratosphere, to construct this tower, finally stopping at about 40 kilometers above the Earth, or just the right height to ask Felix Baumgartner to hand you a Red Bull from his Stratos space capsule. Even after Amazon’s earnings for the trailing 12 months turned negative, its stock has remained buoyant. Let’s examine why Amazon’s stratospheric valuation, so long untethered, may soon approach re-entry.
Elusive profits from “Other Services”
Over the last 10 years, Amazon’s total gross margin has remained within a fairly predictable band, ranging in most quarters between 20% and 26%. For years, investors have assumed that Amazon’s top-line growth will come from online retail sales, while its margins will rise on the shoulders of what Amazon terms “Other Services,” which includes Amazon Web Services, fulfillment, digital content, publishing, and advertising. You might think that, by now, the boost from other services, especially Amazon Web Services, or AWS, would have kicked in. AWS is the largest provider of public cloud computing services, and has been estimated to have grossed over $2 billion last year. Amazon does not break out results for AWS separately in its financials.
Some insights can be gained in reviewing how Amazon treats expenditures to build this business. Internal use software is amortized over two years, and the servers used for AWS are depreciated over three years. The short amortization and depreciation periods signal that the infrastructure for web services may be more capital intensive than one might assume. Generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, require that software and equipment are amortized and depreciated over management’s best estimate of their useful lives. Having to replace server infrastructure every few years signals a relatively high fixed cost.
Couple this fixed cost challenge with Amazon’s penchant for discounting to gain business, and you can see why AWS is not having more of an impact on the company’s net income. AWS tends to cut pricing for server time as it gains efficiencies, and has passed on 20 price cuts to clients over the last few years. This is helping AWS grow and fend off competition from the likes of Oracle, Google, and IBM. But it also helps explain why strategically, AWS may not be much different than Amazon’s media and electronics online retail business, which, incidentally, still comprises roughly 95% of Amazon’s total
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/ground-control-to-amazon-seattle-we-have-a-problem/
Blame Microsoft for Tech Stocks Dragging on the Dow Today
By Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is having a fine day today, rising 76 points as of 1:45 p.m. EDT on a cheerful unemployment report. But this rosy performance was achieved despite a terrible fall for three of the Dow’s four tech components.
Tech stocks scored an unfortunate hat trick by claiming the three worst performances on today’s Dow. Hewlett-Packard has dropped 7%, Microsoft has lost 5% of its value, and Intel has taken a 2.7% haircut. No other Dow stock has plunged anywhere near as much. IBM was spared from this bloodbath, instead rising 0.3%.
Yes, there’s a pattern here. The largest publicly traded builder of PC systems took the hardest hit, followed by the king of PC operating systems, and then the undisputed champ PC processors. The catalyst was a pair of catastrophic market reports on PC sales from sector analyst firms IDC and Gartner. Big Blue doesn’t sell small systems anymore, which explains the lack of market backlash against that particular technology titan.
IDC‘s report said PC system shipments plunged 14% year over year in the first quarter, nearly twice as fast as the firm had expected. It’s the fourth consecutive annualized unit drop, and PC sales haven’t been this weak since 2009.
IDC placed much of the blame squarely on Microsoft’s shoulders. Not only did the “radical changes” in Windows 8 fail to ignite PC sales the way Windows 7 did, but the fizzled launch also “appears to have slowed the market.”
Gartner adds that weak system sales in the industrialized world can’t be healed by strong shipments into developing markets. “Consumers are migrating content consumption from PCs to other connected devices, such as tablets and smartphones,” the firm said. That trend seems to hold true everywhere you look these days.
It’s been a frustrating path for Microsoft investors, who have watched the company fail to capitalize on the incredible growth in mobile over the past decade. In this brand-new premium report on Microsoft, our analyst explains that while the opportunity is huge, the challenges are many. He’s also providing regular updates as key events occur, so be sure to claim a copy of this report now by clicking here.
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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/blame-microsoft-for-tech-stocks-dragging-on-the-do/
How the Dow's Tech Stocks Have Fared in 2013
By Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The reason why so many people follow the Dow Jones Industrial Average is that it spans nearly the entire breadth of the market. The Dow goes well beyond traditional industrial stocks: You can find everything from health care stocks to financials and energy companies.
Technology plays a big role in the Dow, and several of its most recent additions have come from that space. Yet investors have been nervous about many of these Dow tech giants, as smaller competitors have gotten a jump on them in lucrative high-growth areas. Let’s take a look at how the five tech companies in the Dow have fared so far in 2013 and what their prospects are for the rest of the year and beyond.
Dow tech stock total return price data by YCharts.
The common theme among all of these stocks is that they got their initial success from an area of the technology industry that is under threat from newer innovations. Therefore they have all had to make strategic shifts to seek out new ways to capitalize on their leadership positions.
Few stocks spark more heated debate than Hewlett-Packard , which has soared so far this year after plunging throughout 2012. Given the weakness in the company’s traditional core segment — PCs and associated peripherals — HP has had to move into the server market in an attempt to seek out higher-margin, cloud-computing-related services. Yet with many of the largest server users putting together their own server designs, it’s far from certain that HP can crack into the highly competitive market. And meanwhile, it will probably take longer than many investors would hope for HP to put its PC past behind it.
Similar reliance on the PC industry plagues Intel and Microsoft. Like HP, Intel has looked to its strength in the server chip market to bolster its flagging PC-processor business. But the real future is in mobile chips, and Intel has given competitors a big head-start in that area despite recent efforts to catch up, such as its planned Haswell chip slated for a June release. Microsoft has sought to move in nearly every direction to go beyond its PC-based software core, but it has encountered resistance at every turn, with its smartphone and tablet initiatives thus far showing mixed results at best.
Still, IBM has shown that such a transformation can be done. The former hardware giant has done a stellar job of moving into higher-margin server and IT services businesses. In particular, by focusing itself on the big-data needs of businesses seeking to mine voluminous amounts of information for business-enhancing knowledge, IBM managed to get an early jump on its similarly sized competitors and remain at the forefront of innovation in tech.
Increasingly, the Dow’s tech giants have found themselves encroaching on each other’s traditional niches in an attempt to broaden their reach. Like IBM, Cisco Systems has sought to
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/how-the-dows-tech-stocks-have-fared-in/
OpenDaylight: SDN Really Done Right?
The VAR Guy: Key backers include Big Switch Networks, Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Ericsson, IBM, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, NEC, Red Hat and VMware.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Linux Today
Let's Not Rely on This Outdated Metric
By Dan Newman, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
We live in the Information Age, but do our economic indicators? Does GDP capture the outputs of every new technology, especially when so many new technologies seemingly charge nothing for their use? And how does paying attention to GDP over other measures affect economics, policy, and society?
A closer look is needed.
Hidden value
GDP has long ignored many value-creating activities like parenting. Such a value, though, is likely to be relatively constant over centuries. But recently, as more value arises from computers, the Internet, and information proliferation, GDP may not be measuring a huge economic shift. Take a look at the make-up of GDP over the period in which the Internet and computer use became mainstream:
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The percentage of GDP added by information, communications, and technology-producing industries has remained remarkably constant, hovering around 4%. This, while the number of Internet users increased from 36% of the population to nearly 80% — while our society transitioned from yearbooks to Facebook, newspapers to iPads, and mail to Gmail. This is the “Clothesline Paradox,” explained well by Tim O’Reilly:
You put your clothes in the dryer, and the energy you use gets measured and counted. You hang your clothes on the clothesline, and it “disappears” from the economy. It struck me that there are a lot of things that we’re dealing with on the Internet that are subject to the Clothesline Paradox. Value is created, but it’s not measured and counted. It’s captured somewhere else in the economy.
O’Reilly argues that GDP is good at measuring value capture instead of value creation. As an example, take Japan. Since 1989 the country has averaged GDP growth of 1%, which earned the intervening era the nickname “the lost decades.” But even though GDP was slow to grow, life expectancy and trade increased — along with, arguably, the overall quality of life in the country. While Japan‘s GDP demonstrates a slightly-better-than-stagnant economy, plenty of other measures paint a different picture.
Capturing versus creating
Those companies that have captured some of the value of the Information Age have performed spectacularly. Companies that have failed to transition are fighting to hold on to traditional revenue streams, and GDP might become distorted as a result. Look at News Corp. , which recently threatened to pull its over-the-air broadcasts and move to cable because of a start-up, Aereo, that captures its broadcast with small antennas and streams the content wherever a user might be. News Corp. typically captures value through fees for rebroadcasting its content, but Aereo disrupts that revenue stream, and although News Corp. still creates the content, Aereo collects the value. The measured GDP value of those rebroadcasting fees disappears and may not be totally recaptured or built upon by Aereo, because Aereo gives away a limited version of its service for free.
Former executive Irving Wladawsky-Berger writes on another example of creating value versus capturing value internally at IBM :
The bulk of the value of
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Analyst Moves: IBM, STRZA
By MarketNewsVideo IBM (IBM) was upgraded from neutral to buy by UBS (UBS) as the company is well positioned to become an IT service company. A price target of $235 was set.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Markets
UBS Upgrades IBM to Buy with $235 Price Target
UBS analyst Steve Milunovich upgraded IBM from Neutral to Buy and raised his target price from $210 to $235. The shares are up $2.50 to $212, or just over 1% when the S&P 500 us up 1%.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Why This Important Dow Stock Jumped 1.5% Today
By Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
IBM is a giant among Dow stocks. The IT hardware and services veteran accounts for 11% of the Dow Jones Industrial Average index by weight, and its price swings always make a big difference to the Dow’s daily value changes.
This morning, Big Blue‘s shares jumped as much as 1.5% on an analyst upgrade. That’s enough to add 25 points to the Dow’s overall value, thanks to IBM‘s $211 share price, and a major driver of today’s bullish Dow action.
The fuel for this morning’s rocket ride came from star analyst Steve Milunovich, formerly of Merrill Lynch but now a managing director at Swiss powerhouse UBS. Milunovich is the kind of rainmaker who can move even blue-chip mega caps like IBM with a stroke of his pen.
In this case, Milunovich boosted IBM from “hold” to “buy” with a $235 price target. That would be a 12% upside to Tuesday’s closing prices.
He paints Big Blue as a company in transition, “well positioned” to become a leader in so-called “IT-as-a-service” cloud computing. That’s a model where businesses kick their IT operations out as a stand-alone business or divisions, moving a traditional cost center into the realm of flexible and potentially profitable operations.
These IT-focused entities are often powered by advanced cloud-computing solutions and big outsourcing contracts — two areas where IBM is both huge and growing.
Milunovich calls this a “sound strategy,” and it’s hard to disagree.
IBM has been heading in this direction for many years now, but the IT-as-a-service trend is primed for massive growth in the near future as the idea enters the mainstream. IBM stock has already crushed its Dow Jones peers over the last five and 10 years, and it’s likely to keep on keeping on.
So this man among Dow stock boys looks primed for further gains. Milunovich sees a 12% return for the next year, and I believe that’s an appropriate long-term growth rate for the next five years as well. In fact, I just started a long-term outperform CAPScall on IBM to underscore the comprehensive power of IBM‘s cloud-focused industry muscle.
The amount of data we store every year is growing by a mind-boggling 60% annually! To make sense of this trend and pick out a winner, The Motley Fool has compiled a new report called “The Only Stock You Need to Profit From the NEW Technology Revolution.” The report highlights a company that has gained 300% since first recommended by Fool analysts but still has plenty of room left to run. To get instant access to the name of this company transforming the IT industry, click here — it’s free.
The article Why This Important Dow Stock Jumped 1.5% Today originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any company mentioned. Check out
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Tech Stocks: The Wind Beneath the Dow's Wings
By Jessica Alling, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
New records galore: After a quick dip yesterday morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 60 points to close at a new all-time high — and it wasn’t done there. Up 115 points as of 11 a.m. EDT, the index is gaining from positive housing market news and the FOMC‘s latest meeting minutes, as well as some international economic signs. Not to mention the fleet of big-time tech players on the move this morning.
After disclosing a disappointing 4% drop last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage and refinancing loan applications were up 4.5% during the previous week. This is great news to investors who have been continually disappointed by more and more signs of a weakening labor market. Since the housing and labor markets are so closely tied with the performance of the overall economy, it’s important that at least one of them continues to gain momentum as the other dips.
Released five hours early, the FOMC‘s most recent meeting minutes gave investors some positive reinforcement as it showed most members in favor of continuing the current QE policy through the middle of the year. The last release of minutes caused most banks to stutter when it revealed that more and more committee members were concerned with the cost of continuing the current policy, and though it appeared that there was a similar case this time, it didn’t seem to worry investors as much. Later today, details of the March federal budget will be released.
Overseas, China reported an increase in imports and exports, signaling new opportunities for international trade. Imports were up 14.1%, while exports were up 10%.
This morning’s highfliers
Tech stocks are flying high again today, with Cisco taking the lead as the stock jumped 2.5% this morning. Hand in hand with Cisco is Microsoft , up 2.03%, as the two announce some joint projects to help IT customers. The companies will join Cisco’s Unified Data Center architecture with Microsoft’s Fast Track solutions to help reduce complexity and improve functionality for its data center customers. The two are also developing solutions for sellers of the current products to work jointly as a way to expand the data center business operations.
Intel is also on the rise, with a 3.06% gain. The chip maker is making solid gains into the Chinese mobile market, with the second phone to feature its CloverTrail+ Atom processor debuting at Beijing‘s 2013 IDF. The ZTE Geek (yep, you read that right) is the newest phone to feature the Intel processor, following the Lenovo K900, which scored big in early comparisons over other processors. With its foot in the door and positive feedback so far, Intel is on its way to becoming a true player in the mobile market — though it still has some catching up to do.
IBM is the tech laggard today, though the company is up 1.34% as of this writing.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
America's 3rd Best CEO Could Give You an Investing Edge
By Brian Stoffel, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy to dissect balance sheets, income, and cash flow statements. This is the first step in getting your feet wet in the investment world.
But it doesn’t stop there. If we were to base investing decisions solely on what we read in these statements, that would be akin to picking a significant other based solely on their Facebook profile — to many, it just doesn’t make sense to avoid real-life interaction.
Investigating these “soft” aspects of a company is important for investors. And although we can’t capture all of the intangibles of a company in one article, Glassdoor.com — a website that collects employee sentiment for companies across the world — recently came out with a list that could help: the Top CEOs of 2013.
Over the past few days, I’ve covered CEOs 25 through 4. Today, I’m going to introduce you to the company with the third-highest-rated CEO, give you some background on the company, and at the end, I’ll offer access to a special free report on who is going to win the war between the five biggest tech stocks.
Cognizant Technology
Cognizant is a specialist in technology and outsourcing consulting. It is the second technology-consulting firm to have a CEO in the top 25, as Accenture‘s Pierre Nanterme was ranked as seventh overall this year.
In understanding why technology-consulting can be such a big business, I think fellow Fool Dan Caplinger put it best: “With constant advances in technology, many companies simply can’t keep up without outside help.” And that makes sense, if one is focused on clients, there hardly seem to be enough hours in the day to serve them and keep abreast of all the ways the latest technology can help you serve them.
That helps explain why Accenture and IBM, the industry’s two biggest players, have been able to gobble up so much market share. But there’s a second tier of technology-consultants — in terms of sheer size — as well. That’s where Cognizant, as well as its main competition — Infosys and Wipro — come in to play.
One of the key differentiators between Cognizant and its two closest competitors is location. While Infosys and Wipro are located in India, Cognizant is headquartered in New Jersey. That might sound like as disadvantage — as much of the outsourcing occurs in India — but lately, it’s been more of a boon.
Take a quick look at where these three companies get their revenue.
Source: SEC filings. Wipro numbers are for all of “Americas,” not just North America.
What might look like a weakness for Cognizant — in that its clients are mainly centered in one region — has been a strength over the past few years, as North American economies have recovered from the Great Recession much quicker than other regions of the world (Europe especially).
A leader to take the company global
But as you might guess, remaining focused
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Why IBM Still Looks Solid
By Brian Pacampara, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool’s free investing community, global IT solutions giant International Business Machines has earned a coveted four-star ranking.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at IBM and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
IBM facts
|
Headquarters (founded) |
Armonk, N.Y. (1910) |
|
Market Cap |
$233.2 billion |
|
Industry |
IT consulting and other services |
|
Trailing-12-Month Revenue |
$104.5 billion |
|
Management |
Chairman/CEO Virginia Rometty CFO Mark Loughridge |
|
Return on Capital (average, past 3 years) |
25.8% |
|
Cash/Debt |
$11.2 billion / $33.3 billion |
|
Dividend Yield |
1.6% |
|
Competitors |
Accenture Hewlett-Packard Microsoft |
Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 91% of the 4,769 members who have rated IBM believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward.
Just yesterday, one of those bulls, Motley Fool Co-Founder David Gardner (TMFSpiffyPop), tapped IBM as a particularly solid selection:
Nobody ever went wrong buying IBM (stock, for the long term). An amazing company by almost any standard I can think of. That said, this won’t be hitting my Stock Advisor scorecard anytime soon, I don’t think, as there are just too many other companies I can foresee outperforming this one. But it’s still darn good enough for one of my green thumbs! Outperform.
If you want market-thumping returns, you need to put together the best portfolio you can. Of course, despite a strong four-star rating, IBM may not be your top choice.
We’ve found another stock we are incredibly excited about — excited enough to dub it “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” We have compiled a special free report for investors to uncover this stock today. The report is 100% free, but it won’t be here forever, so click here to access it now.
Want to see how well (or not so well) the stocks in this series are performing? Follow the TrackPoisedTo CAPS account.
The article Why IBM Still Looks Solid originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Brian Pacampara has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Accenture. The Motley Fool owns shares of International Business Machines and Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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b.type=”text/javascript”;b.async=!0;b.src=(“https:”===c.location.protocol?”https:”:”http:”)+
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Best Investments for the Next 5 Years
By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
It’s nearly impossible to project anything five years out. If it were easy, we’d all know what stocks to put in our portfolio. Ironically, however, thinking long-term is a healthy habit for stock market investors. It filters out the noise and helps investors think about the underlying fundamentals that drive businesses over the long haul. In the next few paragraphs, I’ll uncover two stocks that could make some of the best investments over the next half-decade.
Apple
PC sales are declining, and smartphone and tablet sales are booming. If there’s one company that is sure to benefit from this trend over the next five years, it’s Apple. Yes, Apple may have lost market share over the last 12 months to Samsung, but it still captures the majority of worldwide smartphone profits. In fact, a recent study by Canaccord Genuity found that Apple took 72% of worldwide handset profits in the fourth quarter.
Another favorable factor for Apple: It is a cash cow. Even as the company’s margins continue to decline, it’s still adding far more money to its balance sheet than it’s paying out in dividends. In 2012 alone, the company earned $46.3 billion in free cash flow on $164.7 billion in revenue. Free cash flow, of course, is equal to cash provided by operations minus capital expenditures, so this is the cash Apple generated after it took care of its operating expenses and its long-term investments.
Though 2013 may have been tough on the stock so far, analysts, on average, expect earnings to increase at about 19% annually over the next five years.
Berkshire Hathaway
The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, seems to be on his A game — even at 82 years old. Berkshire Hathaway shares almost tripled the S&P 500‘s 11.8% return over the last 12 months, with a 30.1% gain. Even better, his lieutenants, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, have both managed to outperform the S&P 500 by double-digit margins. In fact, they did better than Buffett himself, he admitted in the 2012 annual letter to shareholders.
Though it’s too early to tell whether Berkshire’s acquisition of H.J. Heinz will play out nicely, the outcomes of the company’s major acquisitions and purchases over the last five years have in time mostly silenced the naysayers who so eagerly criticized Buffett at the time of the purchases.
A case in point is the company’s largest acquisition ever: Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which it acquired in 2010 and turned out to be a significant success. In 2010, the company earned $2.45 billion; just two years later, the railroad contributed a whopping $3.37 billion to Berkshire’s earnings. Since Berkshire acquired BNSF, the Dow Jones U.S. Railroads Index has more than doubled the returns of the S&P 500, snapping up a return in excess of 80%.
Berkshire isn’t lacking in stock ideas, either. In 2011, Berkshire started picking up shares of IBM like nobody’s business. Now Berkshire owns 6.1% of the company. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
AMD Wants to Be Tech's Next Apple-Sized Turnaround
By Alex Planes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
You certainly can’t call Advanced Micro Devices a company of small ambitions. Last week, AMD vice president Roy Taylor told hardware blog Bit-Tech that his company might soon follow in the footsteps of Apple and IBM , two companies in the tech industry with the most legendary turnaround stories.
The upside for investors would be massive. For comparison, let’s take a look at how much Apple shares have grown in value since the launch of the first iMac in 1998, which was the first major new product of the second Steve Jobs era:
AAPL Total Return Price data by YCharts.
And here’s IBM‘s boom following its 1993 hiring of Lou Gerstner, who’s frequently credited with spearheading IBM‘s turnaround:
IBM Total Return Price data by YCharts.
Pretty impressive! So, how exactly does Roy Taylor expect AMD to follow in these deep footsteps? Here’s the relevant quote from Bit-Tech:
But, thinks Taylor, with the company’s new generation of APUs (a [central processor] and [graphics processor] combined on one chip), it is well set for the future. A large part of this will be driven by AMD having secured deals with Nintendo and Sony to have its APUs in the Wii U and PS4 (and it’s long rumoured the upcoming new [Microsoft] Xbox will also feature an AMD chip). With these processors in place there is significant incentive for developers to work hard on making their games and apps run well on AMD hardware, which in turn may drive uptake of AMD [chips] in other sectors of the market.
Chips in consoles. For reference, the entire lifetime global sales of the current-gen consoles (counting the original Wii as well as the Wii U for Nintendo) to date is roughly 250 million units. The Xbox 360 has been out since 2005. The Wii and the PS3 have been out since 2006. Nearly 210 million smartphones were sold in 2012. Over 350 million PCs sold that same year. And you want to focus on a segment of technology that’s not only sold less than a tenth as many units per year as these two primary groups combined, but one that’s got increasing competition from mobile devices as well? The Wii U, which is the only true “next-gen” console available, is already showing disappointing sales on the market. The original Wii sold over 7 million units in its first year on the market. Nintendo’s already cut first-year estimates for the Wii U to around 4 million units.
It’s one thing to be ambitious. But if you’re going to shoot for the moon, don’t try to do it with a rocket that’s already failed to lift off the launch pad. Steve Jobs understood that. So did Lou Gerstner. That’s why Apple and IBM today bear almost no resemblance to the companies that originally handed those executives the reins. AMD‘s chip competitors have shifted with the market. Will AMD‘s executives realize that they need to shift as …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
OpenDaylight Debuts with High Stakes for Networked Business
The Linux Foundation has announced the OpenDaylight Project, an open source framework for developing and implementing Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions that enable dynamic, programatic control of key network elements such as routers, switches and associated storage. Top-tier founding members of the project include some big names: Cisco, Citrix, IBM, Juniper Networks, Microsoft and VMware, among others, but smaller vendors and individual developers are participating as well. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest