IBM 1Q18 Earnings: EPS Beats @ $2.45

IBM’s 1Q18 earnings were just announced, and beat estimates on EPS of $2.42 per share at $2.45, and revenue at $19.1 billion (vs. estimates of $18.84 billion).

CNBC’s report highlights:

Last quarter, IBM announced revenue growth from the year-ago quarter for the first time in more than five years. That streak is now continuing for a second quarter.

But the company reaffirmed its previous guidance of $13.80 in earnings per share, excluding certain items, for the full year of 2018, while analysts polled by FactSet had expected $13.83 per share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Cantor Fitzgerald analysts led by Joseph Foresi said in a Friday note that they expect IBM to report gains from companies upgrading to IBM’s latest mainframe computer, the z14.

IBM continues to seek growth from its strategic imperatives, which include social, mobile, analytics and cloud. In the fourth quarter that group contributed 49 percent of all revenue, and the Cantor analysts expect that balance to be unchanged in the first quarter.

With respect to guidance, for the second quarter analysts expect IBM to forecast $3.05 in earnings per share, excluding certain items, on $19.9 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters.

Uncle Sam’s IT Challenges

Today is officially the last day to file your 2017 taxes, and oh yeah, good luck with that.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, “Some IRS computer systems are ‘experiencing technical difficulties.’”

The problem is believed to be a hardware failure, and the IRS is rebooting its systems, said a congressional aide familiar with the matter.

The IRS sent an email at 8:46 a.m. ET Tuesday notifying accountants and other tax professionals that parts of the Modernized eFile system, which receives tax returns electronically, were “unavailable.”

Does this mean I don’t have to pay my taxes? 

Okay, okay…actually, I filed a few weeks ago, but a person can dream.

Most Americans have already filed their 2017 income taxes, but millions do so in the final days of the filing season. Last year, between April 14 and April 21, the IRS received more than 17 million returns.

The IRS has been trying to update its outdated computer systems for several years, and agency leaders have warned about potential malfunctions and said they are guarding closely against external threats.

Maybe they need more tax robots.  Call Elon.

Robotic Confusion

Have you watched the new “Lost in Space” series on Netflix?

Danger, Will Robinson!

Sorry, couldn’t help myself.  It’s good stuff.

But, I must say, I’m now all confused about this whole robotic thing.

Now because of the new Netflix series.  

No, rather, because I keep hearing loads of contradictions about what’s going on with the whole machine versus man convo.

On the one hand, I hear that robots are going to take over the world and leave us mere mortals sitting around in a depressed malaise, complaining about how the robots took all our jobs.

And then on the other, I learn that robots are “riding to the rescue” in Eastern Europe, where severe labor shortages have forced companies to call in the machines.

Perhaps both these things are true, and that’s the real warning about our future?  We just don’t know.

Two stories in particular struck me as resonant with this apparent contradiction.

First, in The New York Times, this headline: Robots Ride to the Rescue Where Workers Can’t Be Found. 

The lede: Fast-growing economies in Eastern Europe have led to severe labor shortages, so companies are calling in the machines.

As reported, despite a roaring economy and a jobless rate of just 2.4 percent, in the Czech Republic the dearth of manpower has limited the ability of Czech companies to expand and nearly a third of them have started to turn away orders.

Jaroslav Hanak, the president of the Czech Confederation of Industry, explained that “It’s becoming a brake on growth…If businesses don’t increase robotization and artificial intelligence, they’ll disappear.”

And apparently this in an Eastern Europe that is already well automated, with around 101 robots for every 10,000 workers.

But then there’s this other story: That Elon Musk is replacing robots at his Tesla factory with humans, saying that “humans are underrated.”

This is the same guy who warned us about the coming AI apocalypse.

But because his Tesla Model 3 production facility is way behind on delivering vehicles to customers who have been waiting for many months, apparently the AI apocalypse is not so close that it will prevent humans from coming in to fix the problem that the machines caused in the first place.

As Musk explained on the “CBS This Morning” show to Gayle King in a recent interview: “We had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts…And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.”

And so Musk has now hit “pause” on the Tesla 3 production line to try and resolve those problems with the automation and figure out a way that humans can come in and restart production and, presumably, be more efficient and reach its target of 5,000 cars produced per week by the end of 2018.

As for the robots, they’ll have to get back in their own assembly line and wait to be reassigned.

No danger, Will Robinson.  That is, unless you’re Class B-9-M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot (the Robot’s real name in the original “Lost in Space”).