[throwaway5752]

No offense, do you subscribe to EMH? Because:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal#Timeline_of_downf... ($90/share to bankrupt in about a year)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Stearns#Fed_bailout_and_sa... ($140/share to $2 in less than a year)

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/723527/00009317630300... ($90/share to bankrupt in 2 years)

These are just egregious cases. The stock market as an oracle is thoroughly overrated. BlackBerry, the late 90s market bubble, the mid-00s financial products bubble... stock price movement says less than you think it does.

[missserenity]

Each of these companies had huge scandals related to accounting fraud. Are you assuming the same is the case with IBM?

[hga]

Whenever you see many people (not just this author) talk about a company's "financial engineering" you should be concerned they might cross that line; couple that with an explicit pledge to double earnings/share to $20 by 2015 and the danger should be apparent.

[jbooth]

.. and you're talking about 2010-2014, a period when the market as a whole went up by about 50%, and pointing to IBM as a success story?