They all seem to love IBM Corp on Wall Street these days: S G Warburg analyst David Wu said he raised his 12-month price target for the shares to $80 to $85 per share from $75, citing positive signals from Europe – if the headwinds of the non-US economies are turning into tailwinds, which we are seeing fairly soon, IBM cannot help but benefit from that, he said, adding that optimism was fuelled by last week’s better-than-expected earnings from Hewlett-Packard Co; he also called his 1995 earnings estimate of $5.50 per share conservative because it assumes 6% revenue growth and a two point drop in gross margins, two figures that can easily improve if Europe kicks in.
