Diamonds and Dogs

2/18/16

As Watson teaches you, he is also making you money. Watson is the famous artificial intelligence (A.I.) computer created by today's diamond, International Business Machines (IBM). The company's shares are having one of their better days in a long time spiking over 6% thank to an upgrade form Morgan Stanley with a $140 price target. IBM is also continuing its expansion into cloud computing with their $2.6 billion acquisition of Truven Health, a cloud based healthcare data provider. IBM's cloud computing revenue is up to 35% of total revenue compared to Microsoft's 36%. The turnaround for IBM has been slow, but hopefully it's gaining momentum.

Falling prices and stock prices at the world's largest retailer, Walmart. Walmart (WMT) is the dog today down 3% following disappointing earnings. Fourth quarter earnings fell 7.9% due to higher operating expenses and lower sales driven by factors like warmer weather and weaker sales of smartphones and the latest television sets. Walmart also lowered its estimate for sales growth in fiscal year 2017, which begins now. The company now expects sales to be relatively flat. Lower oil prices were supposed to be good for the retail sector, but it's not showing up in the numbers yet.