IBM: Recession Resistant - Barron's

Barron's Tech Trader says "When it comes to recessions, big and boring can be a beautiful thing" -- which is why he's just as pumped about IBM (IBM) as he was about Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) last week. While no company is immune to a potential 'deep recession,' IBM's broad international sales and diverse businesses make it far more recession-resistant than most.

About 65% of IBM's revenue comes from abroad, including 22% from red-hot emerging economies. While IBM does rely heavily on the business of downtrodden financial service companies, it is noteworthy that 75% of its financial-services sales are non-domestic, and most of that is from recurring contracts that provide ongoing revenue streams. IBM is improving its execution. It also added another $15B to its share repurchase plan last week, which it can pay for entirely in cash, if it so chooses. At 14x 2008 earnings, shares look cheap compared to Microsoft's (MSFT) 15x.