IBM: A one-man shop

The last two years have been a disaster for tech company stocks, I don’t need to tell you that. Through all of this, though, IBM stock held up fairly well and remained between $110 and $125 until the last couple of weeks when the stock went on a deep slide from $125 to $103 today. Why the sudden change? Miracleworker Lou Gerstner is retiring after nine years at the top in place of IBM lifer Sam Palmisano. The big change at IBM during Gerstner’s tenure is the move to push services revenue instead of hardware and software. I’m a little surprised at the stock price movement since Palmisano has been a leader of this change, his ascension was widely expected even if the timing was not, and IBM is largely producing what Wall Street expects. Oh well, just goes to show you can’t predict the market.