Scott,
Sorry, I should have said IMHO....
2 quotes from their earnings announcement:
"IBM ANNOUNCES THIRD-QUARTER 2000 RESULTS
3Q00 EPS increased 20%, excluding 1999 items
ARMONK, N.Y., October 17, 2000 . . . IBM today announced third-quarter 2000 diluted earnings per common share of $1.08 compared with 1999 diluted earnings per common share of $.93..."
"...IBM's tax rate in the third quarter was 30.0 percent compared with 33.0 percent in the third quarter of last year (or 30.0 percent excluding the 1999 actions).
IBM spent approximately $1.4 billion on common share repurchases in the third quarter. The average number of basic common shares outstanding in the quarter was 1,758 million compared with 1,805 million in the third quarter of 1999. There were 1,754 million basic common shares outstanding at September 30, 2000."
Having recently retired from 30 years of sales and marketing with IBM, I have seen the "games" first-hand.
They trumpet "meeting the street estimate", but my math says that they made, at best, $1.05 per share based on same number of shares......forgetting about tax games, for which they are well-known(???)
But....I'm just an amateur lurker..., and could be wrong.
Al. |
