IBM’s Buy Rating Maintained at BofA

BofA Securities analysts reaffirmed their Buy rating and a $209 price target for IBM (NYSE:IBM) stock. The analysts attended IBM's Think 2024 event in Boston, where the company announced the release of its Granite model family into open source. The analysts noted that while large language models (LLMs) can be costly to train and operate, IBM is adopting a more pragmatic approach with smaller, more enterprise-friendly models, particularly for inferencing.

BofA reiterated the Buy rating, highlighting IBM's ongoing turnaround, revenue growth, and free cash flow improvements. They also emphasized IBM's defensive portfolio, attractive dividend yield, and underappreciated AI portfolio, which has a cumulative business value exceeding $1 billion.