[Crito]

If IBMs stock price were nothing more than uninformed public opinion, then it would have been plummeting for what, the past decade? Most non-technical people don't know IBM still exists (they nearly entirely disappeared from the general public's view when they stopped making consumer products); and most people in the trendy half of the tech industry seem to think that IBM is not long for this world.

[VLM]

Its a speculators market so applying logic is a fools errand. None the less, if you buy IBM you're trading a very liquid $185 cash for a very liquid share with tradition of paying a quarterly dividend around $1. Thats an equivalent interest rate "yield" of 2.40% or so. My local credit union is only paying 1.44% on a similar long term-ish investment. Its not completely worthless, but its being milked like a cash cow not treated like a tech company. The PE ratio is like "ten" compared to googles "thirty" or facebook which off the top of my head is like "a hundred".

Comparing the yield of this dead horse to a company that actually matters like Caterpillar or XOM its about the same, around 2.5%.

Of course .gov guarantees return of my capital from my credit union, but who knows what'll happen in the market WRT IBM, so it should return a bit more. CAT and XOM are actually worth something as a going concern. IBM, well...

So.. rate of return below real world inflation rate, no prospects for growth, no one in the market expects future growth (not paying a high price now for earnings later). Doomed. Maybe google or apple will buy them for pennies on the dollar? IBM has patents...