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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
Cheap multiples on a profitable business usually invite a closer look at the balance sheet — and here the balance sheet is the complication. IBM's P/E of 20.5× sits -52% below the sector median of 42.7×, and EV/EBITDA of 20.6× runs -41% below the sector median of 34.9×, placing valuation in the sector's top quartile for cheapness. FCF yield of 6.3% runs +230% above the sector median of 1.9%, and the F-Score of 6/9 reflects solid profitability. The strain shows in debt: Debt/EBITDA of 4.2× exceeds the sector median of 0.9× by +353%, and the current ratio of 0.96 falls -26% below the sector median of 1.30. Consensus carries a mixed record against realized results — the market models growth that SEC filings show the company has historically delivered, though the forward PEG reads stretched, so the consensus view warrants some caution.
| 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 weakening; 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 free cash flow yield against the current 1.92% figure and monitor whether Debt/EBITDA — now 4.5× above the sector median at 0.92× — is moving toward the peer range. The profitability block scored a clean 4/4, so watch whether that holds while leverage improves.
On SEC EDGAR, open IBM's most recent 10-K and read the Liquidity and Capital Resources section. The current ratio of 1.30 sits 26% below the sector median, and the leverage discussion will clarify how management plans to service and reduce the debt load that drives the elevated Debt/EBITDA reading.
From the same-sector table in section 06, pick two or three companies and line up one metric — EV/EBITDA or FCF yield are natural choices given IBM's 41% discount on the former and 3.3× premium on the latter. The table is alphabetical with no ranking, so the comparison is yours to construct.
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 | 7/9 | 27% | +12% | 24% |
| 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.