02:50 PM EDT, 07/02/2025 (MT Newswires) -- CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:

We raise our target price by $20 to $296, 26.5x our 2025 EPS view, above most peers and IBM's ( IBM ) three-year historical average (17x) given significant GenAI momentum. We lift our 2025 EPS view by $0.13 to $11.17 and raise 2026's by $0.11 to $11.94, on our view of additional software strength from virtualization tailwinds and improved efficiency from internal AI usage. Shares are having a great run (+115% in the last two years, +30% since early April) as investors increasingly buy IBM's ( IBM ) hybrid cloud/AI leadership proposition and software transformation (with quantum more of a 2030 story, in our view), and we still see it as among the best positioned in the industry to capitalize on AI across the entire tech stack. Still, we think a high bar has been set for Q2 earnings, which likely needs to show resurgent software growth, strong z17/infrastructure performance and solid efficiency gains to justify the recent price increase, while the still-uncertain impact from tariffs remains a potential party crasher.