UPDATE: Societe Generale Upgrades International Business Machines to Hold on Solid Q4 Results

Societe Generale upgraded International Business Machines

from Sell to Hold and raises the price target from $188.00 to $201.00. Societe Generale noted, "IBM has delivered a solid performance overall in 2012 and is on track to reach its 2015 EPS target of $20 per share. While Services and Software have been in line with expectations, we were positively surprised by a better ramp-up with the new mainframe solution. Thanks to its continued repositioning to higher valued offerings (for instance Smarter Planet, analytics and cloud have reported double digit growth at Global Business Services) in Software and Services, combining with a strict cost control policy, gross margin continues to improve. With an improving demand environment expected for H2 13, notably in Europe, IBM should be able to reverse its revenue growth trajectory which has declined over the last three quarters." International Business Machines closed at 196.10 on Tuesday.