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International Business Machines

IBM on NYSE. International Business Machines sells cloud and AI technology and consulting to businesses. Market value $208.8bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

The company doesn't report operating profit, so we work it out from pre-tax profit and interest.

Should I look at this?

Worth a closer look

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

Read what could go wrong

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
6.6%high

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $6.61 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
21.8×full

You pay 21.8 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
8.1%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 8 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 72 of 100. Price score: 77 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$221.58 a share, 11% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $199.19 to $332.46.

Dividend: 3.0% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

10.7
9.1
12.7
12.4
12.1
13.8
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$57.4bn$60.5bn$61.9bn$62.8bn$67.5bn
Operating margin
10.4%3.9%16.6%12.0%18.2%
Debt to equity
3.092.542.792.202.07
Shares outstanding
0.90bn0.91bn0.92bn0.93bn0.94bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)5 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt2.07× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 4.1% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $17.2 billion last quarter, up 1% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $2.2 billion, about the same as a year ago.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $13.8 billion, up from $12.2 billion.
  • 1% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • Debt is $60.6 billion more than cash, down from $61.2 billion a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$15.0bn
December 2024$17.6bn
March 2025$14.5bn
June 2025$17.0bn
September 2025$16.3bn
December 2025$19.7bn
March 2026$15.9bn
June 2026$17.2bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024-$330m
December 2024$2.9bn
March 2025$1.1bn
June 2025$2.2bn
September 2025$1.7bn
December 2025$5.6bn
March 2026$1.2bn
June 2026$2.2bn

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
21 October 2026
Last annual report (10-K)
24 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
22 October 2026

Who owns it

17 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 16 last quarter. 3,625 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

1 investor owns more than 5%.

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

In the last 12 months, 3 insiders bought $417,157 of shares on the open market. 1 sold $6m.

  • Thomas Robert David
    Senior Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    26 August 2026
    Shares
    25,000
    Price
    $230.32
    Value
    $6m
  • Miebach Michael
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    25 February 2026
    Shares
    434
    Price
    $233.33
    Value
    $101,265
  • HOWARD MICHELLE J
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    25 February 2026
    Shares
    50
    Price
    $237.83
    Value
    $11,892
  • FARR DAVID N
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    30 January 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $304.00
    Value
    $304,000

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 24 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 23 Jul 2026 and 8 later 8-Ks.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

  • It carries a lot of debt: 2.1× its equity.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.