The Journal News: IBM Shares Soar on Higher Profits, Sales
“IBM Corp. enjoyed its best day on Wall Street since 2002
yesterday after the computer giant surprised investors with
better-than-expected financial results.“IBM’s shares soared to $95.65–a new 52-week high–before
closing at $94.02, up $3.71. It was IBM’s best closing price since
April 5, 2002, when shares closed at $97.25.“IBM earned $2.71 billion, or $1.55 a share, on revenues of
$25.91 billion in the final quarter of 2003…”
Bloomberg/International Herald Tribune: Sun Microsystems
Narrows Loss in Quarter
“Sun Microsystems, which makes server computers that run
corporate networks and Web sites, said Thursday that its
second-quarter loss narrowed as it cut costs.“Sun also said it would fire 300 workers and stop manufacturing
at its facility in Newark, California, to reduce costs as it
transfers production to factories in Hillsboro, Oregon, and
Linlithgow, Scotland, a spokeswoman said. The net loss narrowed to
$125 million, compared with loss of $2.28 billion in the
year-earlier period, the company, based in Santa Clara, California,
said. Sales for the quarter ended Dec. 28 slipped to $2.89 billion
from $2.92 billion. It was the 11th straight quarterly drop in
revenue for Sun. Sun improved its gross margin, the share of sales
left after subtracting production costs, to 41.8 percent from 40.1
percent in the first quarter, said Steve McGowan, the company’s
chief financial officer. Sun is trying to sell cheaper servers
running the Linux operating system to compete against
Hewlett-Packard and Dell…”