NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) - Get Reportare gaining, up 0.96% to $172.37 in midday trading Tuesday, after the company's board declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $1.30 per common share, payable on June 10 to stockholders of record May 8, 2015.
The dividend represents an increase of 20 cents, or 18% compared to the prior quarterly dividend of $1.10 per common share.
Over the last five years, IBM has doubled its quarterly dividend.
IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty said in a statement, "Our success in driving growth in our strategic initiatives and our continuous shift to higher value enables us to continue investing in our business, while also returning value to shareholders."
Armonk, NY-based IBM is an information technology company operating in five segments including global technology services, global business services, software, systems and technology and global financing.
Insight from TheStreet's Research Team
Sham Gad commented on IBM in a recent post on RealMoney.com. Here is what Gad had to say about the stock:
The headline so far in 2015 is the effect of the strengthening dollar on revenues of multinational companies when they have converted foreign revenues. As the dollar gets stronger, it takes more foreign revenue to equal the same amount of dollars. According to an analysis conducted by the Financial Times, the strengthening dollar has wiped some $20 billion in first quarter revenues from U.S. multi-nationals.
Some of biggest "victims" of the strong dollar include General Motors (GM) and IBM (IBM), which have seen revenues impacted by $1.8 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively. Ironically enough, both GM and IBM are two of the most undervalued blue chips in the market today.
For example, GM is expected to deliver over $5.0 in EPS in 2016. Assuming a multiple of 12x earnings, compared with 21x today, GM would trade at $60 a share compared with $36 today. IBM has spent over $100 billion on share buybacks over the past decade. Compare that with a market cap of $169 billion today. IBM continues to buy back shares, suggesting that the future will be very rewarding to patient shareholders.
- Sham Gad, 'Forget the Strong Dollar Effect' originally published 4/27/2015 on RealMoney.com.
Want more information like this from Sham Gad BEFORE your stock moves? Learn more about RealMoney.com now.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates INTL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:
"We rate INTL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP (IBM) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed, some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its growth in earnings per share, notable return on equity and good cash flow from operations. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself and generally higher debt management risk."
You can view the full analysis from the report here: IBM Ratings Report
