IBM and Red Hat have launched Project Lightwell with a $5 billion commitment and 20,000 full-time engineers focused on finding and fixing open-source software vulnerabilities. Six major financial firms are already on board.

Trump signed two quantum computing executive orders at the White House and praised IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. IBM rose 3.26% in premarket trading, while JPMorgan later lifted its price target to $291 and upgraded the stock to overweight.

IBM reported second-quarter results on July 23, with revenue rising just 1% year over year to $17.2 billion and adjusted earnings per share coming in at $2.93, both below expectations. The company also lowered its full-year revenue growth forecast, revising guidance from “more than 5%” to a range of 4% to 5%. A sharp drop in Z series mainframe sales weighed on the quarter, with revenue from that segment falling 42% from a year earlier and dragging infrastructure revenue down 7%. Software was a relative bright spot, posting 5% year-over-year growth. Despite the weaker results and the lower annual outlook, IBM shares rose about 3% in after-hours trading. BlockBeats said the move came after the company had already issued an earnings warning a week earlier, which appears to have tempered the market reaction to the report.

IBM lowered its full-year revenue growth forecast to 4% to 5% after reporting second-quarter results on July 22 Eastern Time, citing weaker demand for mainframes and related system software. The company had previously guided for growth above 5%. In the second quarter, IBM posted revenue of $17.2 billion, up about 1% from a year earlier, while mainframe sales in its infrastructure unit fell 42% as the current product cycle neared its end. IBM said enterprise spending is shifting toward AI hardware, adding pressure to its traditional hardware and software businesses. The company is responding with a faster cost-saving plan that includes cutting third-party technology spending, improving supply chain management, and streamlining administrative functions. Chief Financial Officer Jim Kavanaugh said IBM still expects full-year free cash flow to increase by about $1 billion from last year. The report also noted investor attention on whether generative AI tools could disrupt traditional software business models, with recent market discussion around Starbucks potentially replacing IBM software with internally developed tools.

IBM introduced its 0.7nm Nanostack architecture, saying the design can pack nearly 100 billion transistors on a single chip and could reach mass production in as little as five years.

IBM shares fell about 25% on July 14, marking the company’s biggest one-day drop since 1968, after it projected second-quarter revenue of roughly $17.2 billion, well below expectations. The shortfall was tied to a shift in enterprise spending, with customers moving budget away from traditional software licenses and into AI infrastructure. The update points to mounting pressure on IBM’s legacy businesses as demand patterns change across corporate technology budgets. IBM had previously moved into blockchain-related services with the launch of Digital Asset Haven, a digital asset custody platform introduced in October 2025. But that business has not been enough to offset weakness in the company’s core operations. According to the report cited by Techub, IBM is facing pressure on two fronts: contraction in its traditional technology business and an insufficient contribution so far from newer strategic areas.

JPMorgan has lowered its price target on IBM (IBM.N) to $250 from $291, according to a July 17 update cited by BlockBeats. The brief did not include the reason for the change and did not mention any adjustment to the stock’s rating. No other details were provided in the source item.

U.S. stocks closed higher after June CPI came in softer than expected, cutting the market’s bets on a July rate hike and pushing investors back into rate-sensitive growth trades. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.02%, the S&P 500 gained 0.38%, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.90%. The move was not broad-based. Instead, money rotated heavily into AI hardware, semiconductors, memory, and optical networking, while parts of software and traditional IT services lagged. CPI slowed to 3.5% year over year from 4.2% in May, while monthly CPI fell 0.4%, the first monthly decline in six years. CME FedWatch showed the implied probability of the Federal Reserve holding rates steady in July jumped to 83.4% from 58.3% a day earlier. Treasury yields eased, with the 10-year yield falling to 4.58%, and the VIX dropped to 16.50. Semiconductor and memory names led the rebound. SK Hynix ADR surged 27.29%, Micron rose 4.92%, Nvidia gained 4.06%, and Intel added 4.50%. Large banks also supported sentiment as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan posted strong results. IBM moved the other way, plunging 25.21% after preliminary second-quarter results missed expectations, marking the biggest one-day drop in the company’s 115-year history.