IBM plummets to worst single-day loss in over 5 decades after early earnings

IBM has posted the worst preliminary earnings announcement since 1968, after the company released preliminary second-quarter results.

IBM, the leading mainframe computer market leader, on Tuesday's stock plummets to more than 25% dip in over five decades after the company released early earnings on July 14, 2026.

International Business Machines (IBM) pointed to a decline in earnings results due to a change in customers' shift toward AI servers and memory from mainframe products.

IBM posted adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $2.93 and net income of $17.2 billion.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna in a letter sent to investors, dated Tuesday, July 14, stated that the company foresaw the decline in shares, but the results are far worse than projected. in its z17 mainframe business for the quarter

“In the last few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly (capital expenditures) spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-consulted infrastructure ahead of expected price increases,” said Krishna.

IBM stock was down earlier only 4.8% since January before Tuesday’s session, but that decline has now plunged to 26%.

However, the company’s main rivals aren’t doing much better either, as shares of Oracle have dropped to 33% since the start of the year, while Microsoft has declined 20%.

IBM has scheduled its quarterly earnings call for Wednesday, July 22.