IBM Stock Holds Ground As Wedbush Reiterates Rating On ‘Solid’ Path To AI Strategy, Bottom-Line Expansion: Retail Stays Extremely Bullish

Wedbush analysts expressed optimism over the company’s AI play and its integration with IBM’s consulting business, placing it in a good position to drive growth over the coming years.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) received a thumbs-up from Wedbush analysts on Wednesday after its strong fourth-quarter performance.

Post earnings, a slew of price target hikes led to the largest single-day increase for the stock in over two decades and a bull rally, resulting in IBM’s shares hitting an all-time of $265.72 on Tuesday. 

Wedbush analysts have also expressed optimism over the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) play and its bottom-line expansion over the coming years.

The brokerage reiterated its ‘Outperform’ rating and price target of $300 for IBM stock, implying an upside of over 14% from current levels. IBM’s shares edged lower in morning trade, declining by nearly 0.7% at the time of writing.

Analysts at Stifel were also bullish, hiking their price target for the IBM stock to $290 from $271, implying an upside of 10% from current levels. The brokerage maintained its ‘Buy’ rating on the stock.

Highlighting its key takeaways from IBM’s 2025 investor day, Wedbush noted that the New York-headquartered company is “well-positioned” to innovate and deliver new use cases to its clients.

The brokerage also highlighted that IBM has over $5 billion in business revenue from generative AI services, with more than 80% tied to its consulting business, noting that IBM is enhancing this segment’s productivity and efficiency using AI, which is yet another positive.

The analysts identified IBM’s Watsonx as another growth catalyst, noting that it has “resulted in ~5-6x multiplier for every dollar of Watsonx spend.”

Watsonx is IBM’s commercial generative AI platform, with support for multiple large-language models included.

Wedbush underscored that IBM is on a “solid path” to its bottom-line expansion in 2025 and beyond. The company had guided for over 5% revenue growth in 2025, and Wedbush analysts believe there is “further expansion potential” in this regard.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the IBM stock was in the ‘extremely bullish’ (89/100) territory while message volume was similarly in the ‘extremely high’ zone.

A Stocktwits poll showed that retail users on the platform believe that the IBM share price is “up a lot,” with 32% of voters ready to buy it on dips.

Another 32% of the voters said they could not buy the stock at this point. IBM stock has gained over 43% in the past year, with all of those gains accruing over the past six months.

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