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International Business Machines Corporation
Rule-based classification of fundamentals against the sector. Not a price forecast and not investment advice.
Signals align: quality at a discount to the sector
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4 of 5 met · composite in line with peers
Business quality, valuation against the sector, and position in the 52-week range — whether they line up or not.
Stable quality
Profitability
4/4
Debt & liquidity
1/3
Efficiency
1/2
Traded at a P/E of 20.5× — -51% below the sector median of 42.0× — IBM sits in the top quartile of its sector on valuation, yet the business behind that price is not weak. EPS grew 73.7% year over year, well above the sector median of 31.1%, and the three-year realized CAGR from SEC filings reads as strong; the F-Score of 6/9 reflects solid profitability across all four sub-criteria. FCF yield of 6.4% runs +241% above the sector median of 1.9%, so the cash return is real. The balance sheet is the clearest drag: Debt/EBITDA of 4.2× sits +353% above the sector median of 0.9×, and the current ratio of 0.96 falls -26% below its median — the F-Score's 1/3 on the liquidity and debt sub-group reflects exactly that. Consensus models further EPS expansion, but the forward PEG reads as stretched, and the beat rate over the last eight quarters is mixed, so the market's growth path carries more uncertainty than the headline multiple suggests.
| Ticker | Name | F-Score | ROE | Revenue YoY | Op. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | Apple | 8/9 | 171% | +6% |
Quarter-by-quarter classification · a retrospective read by the current logic · not a price forecast
Rule-based classification of fundamentals against the sector. Not a price forecast and not investment advice. The method did not see these quarters in real time; this is the current logic applied to past reports.
The market prices in earnings growth; analyst sentiment is steady; has mostly beaten consensus.
Price against next year's expected earnings. The forward P/E already carries analyst optimism — read it alongside the “Versus consensus” line.
A forward P/E below the current one means the market expects earnings to grow; above it, to fall. The historical growth is realized figures from SEC filings, not a forecast.
The three-month change in the share of positive analyst ratings. This is sentiment, not an earnings-estimate revision, and not a call to act.
When IBM reports on October 21, 2026, track whether Debt/EBITDA — currently 4.5× the sector median at 0.92× — is moving toward the peer range. Also check whether the 31.1% EPS growth rate holds, and whether free cash flow yield stays above the sector median of 1.87%.
IBM's current ratio sits 26% below the sector median and Debt/EBITDA is elevated. In the 10-K, read the Liquidity and Capital Resources section of MD&A and the long-term debt footnotes to understand the repayment schedule and refinancing risk tied to those figures.
Pick two or three companies from the alphabetical same-sector table in section 06 and line up one metric — Debt/EBITDA or current ratio are the most relevant given IBM's weak signals. No company in the table is ranked; the comparison is yours to draw based on your own risk tolerance.
Steps you can check yourself, based on the figures in this brief.
Piotroski F-Score: nine binary tests of financial strength from the annual report. A ✓ marks a test passed, a dot (·) a test failed.
Over 4 years: -15%+40%-2%-2%
Over 4 years: 4.433.603.714.16
Over 4 years: +6%+2%+1%+8%
The context on the right shows how each figure compares with the sector median. The trend below tracks the change over recent fiscal years.
Beat consensus in 7 of 8 recent quarters — the company clears estimates regularly (consensus is often set conservatively).
Last quarter's EPS against consensus, plus the estimated date of the next report.
| 32% |
| ACN | Accenture | 4/9 | 26% | +7% | 15% |
| ADBE | Adobe | 7/9 | 55% | +11% | 37% |
| AMAT | Applied Materials | 6/9 | 36% | +4% | 29% |
| AMD | Advanced Micro Devices | 7/9 | 7% | +34% | 11% |
| AVGO | Broadcom | 7/9 | 43% | +24% | 40% |
| CRM | Salesforce | 7/9 | 12% | +10% | 20% |
| CSCO | Cisco | 8/9 | 22% | +5% | 21% |
| IBM | International Business Machines Corporation | 6/9 | 35% | +8% | — |
| INTC | Intel | 6/9 | -0% | -0% | -4% |
| INTU | Intuit | 8/9 | 20% | +16% | 26% |
| MSFT | Microsoft | 6/9 | 34% | +18% | 47% |
| NOW | ServiceNow | 4/9 | 15% | +21% | 14% |
| NVDA | NVIDIA | 3/9 | 101% | +65% | 60% |
| ORCL | Oracle | 5/9 | 54% | +17% | 31% |
| TXN | Texas Instruments | 7/9 | 30% | +13% | 34% |
A sample of 16 companies in the sector including the target, alphabetical, unranked. Data from the latest SEC annual reports.
Rule-based classification of fundamentals against the sector. Not a price forecast and not investment advice.
A simplified retrospective read: no analyst forecast (not available historically); the source is the annual report as of the date, so neighbouring quarters can rest on the same data. Quarters with the same classification in a row are merged into one row — each row is one change in the read, not a separate quarter. One ticker is an illustration of the classification logic, not statistics. How we calculate →
The last few quarters are recent context, not a fixed rate. Consensus for near quarters is set low, so companies clear it routinely; over long horizons the forecasts run the other way, too high.
A description of what the market and analysts expect. Not a price forecast and not investment advice. Analyst forecasts run systematically optimistic over long horizons — read them with that discount.