[FredZarguna]

So clueless, their stock prices have been maintaining a long-term upward trajectory for years now?

If the money had somewhere else to go ... if the Fed wasn't pumping ... would IBM making money?

From Forbes

[during the last 18 months]IBM stock has risen at a 7.1% annual rate. But in the last year, the S&P 500 has spiked 24.2% while IBM stock has eked out a mere 4.4% gain.

It hasn't gotten better since that article was written in June. Here's IBM performance vs. the S&P:

The truth is, IBM is a dying company. ALL of their profitability over the last five years has come from cutting staff, cutting costs, and even cutting contractors.

The truth is shareholders can get that kind of performance from guys who ask for $300K/year, so why pay people who make $8.3 million? And apparently, Ginni agrees with me, and not with you, since she has done nothing but sell her shares of IBM since 2011.

But please, keep buying IBM, by all means. You're exactly the kind of "investor" who thinks we ought to outsource the people who actually do the work while CEO's and upper management continue to take a larger and larger share of the profits without producing any results.

Talk about clueless.

[The Antiyuppie]

I agree with you. The easy money has already been squeezed out of their company.

This is just my opinion, IBM is the poster child of the US. Yes, they have a few “halo” projects, but they have gone from a manufacturing and innovation company to a service based company. Ultimately, they will go the way of Unisys, Sperry, and so on - when the good old boy network of salespeople and customers in government and the military die out, their business will go off a ledge.

There was a saying at one time, “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”, meaning, that IBM was a safe choice, you might not get the best deal or the best stuff, but it was going to work and they would make you look good (enough). Now, in 2013, I know places where you may well be fired for buying IBM.