"As the Motley Fool noted, the miss and resulting tumble erased nearly $9 billion from IBM’s market capitalization and brought the Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 64 points.
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So gross margins are putting pressure on a business that needs to start showing real revenue growth if it’s to remain competitive.
IBM can’t rely on stock buybacks and other financial shenanigans to inflate the stock price and make itself appealing to investors."
But of course they ill continue to rely stock buybacks and other financial shenanigans to inflate the stock price so that those in the C-Suite can exercise their options & retire. It's all that matters now. . .
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/ibm-shares-dropped-like-a-rock-today/