NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 3:43 PM ET — Regular session
International Business Machines Corp (NYSE: IBM) shares rose about 0.8% to $307.58 in late afternoon trade on Monday, moving between $303.63 and $308.18. “Lou arrived at IBM at a moment when the company’s future was genuinely uncertain,” CEO Arvind Krishna wrote in an email to staff after former CEO Louis Gerstner died at 83. 1
The move comes in the holiday-shortened final week of 2025, with U.S. markets set to close on Thursday for New Year’s Day. Wall Street’s main indexes were lower in afternoon trade as heavyweight technology stocks such as Nvidia and Palantir retreated from last week’s rally, Reuters reported. Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting and weekly jobless claims were also on investors’ radar. 2
IBM, long known as “Big Blue,” sells software, consulting and infrastructure services built around hybrid cloud — combining on-premise systems with public cloud computing — and artificial intelligence tools for corporate clients. That mix can make the stock behave more like a steady cash-flow story than a high-growth tech bet when risk appetite fades. 3
Gerstner took over in 1993, when IBM was struggling, and ran the company for nine years. He is widely credited with pivoting it toward business services while slashing costs and selling assets.
His death has put renewed attention on the transformation that set the stage for IBM’s current focus on enterprise software and services. Traders said the stock’s muted intraday swings suggested the headline had limited impact on day-to-day positioning.
Investors often use IBM as a read-through on corporate technology spending rather than consumer demand. That makes its stock more sensitive to changes in business confidence and IT budgets than to the day’s retail or advertising news.
In the background, IBM is still in deal-making mode. The company agreed earlier this month to buy data-streaming firm Confluent for $11 billion as it pushes deeper into cloud and enterprise AI, Reuters reported. 4
Traders will look for signs that large corporate customers are keeping spending steady on software subscriptions and consulting projects. Any update on integration plans for recent acquisitions will also be in focus.
IBM’s next scheduled catalyst is its fourth-quarter earnings announcement on Jan. 28, 2026, a preliminary date listed on its investor relations calendar. Guidance for 2026 and any change in free-cash-flow expectations will likely set the tone for the stock early next year. 5
Rate expectations remain a key driver for large-cap tech valuations heading into 2026. Any surprise shift in policymakers’ tone can feed through quickly to how investors price slower-growing, dividend-paying names.
Some investors are also watching for a so-called Santa Claus rally, a seasonal tendency for stocks to rise in the last trading days of the year and the first sessions of January. Thin liquidity can amplify moves in either direction.
For IBM, the year-end tape is also a test of whether its AI message can hold investor interest without a fresh product launch or quarterly update. For now, the stock has traded in a narrow band as markets head into the final sessions of 2025.
