IBM's stock price in 1999 was $140. Now it's 2019 and the price is still $140.
Executives are paid based on stock price. Employees fund it.
Over a span of 20 years: 100 IBM stock price increases have been followed by 100 decreases. That has resulted in 100 sets of executive bonuses, followed by 100 sets of layoffs to pay for them.
IBM has been fooling shareholders and employees for more than 2 decades. Who's the fool? The executive who creates the deception or the employee who for falls for it?
Good work if you can get it. Bonus when stocks go up. Pay back nothing when they go down.
"Any investor that invests (not trades) in a company whose incentive is based on anything other than long-term growth and stability is a fool."
I'd settle for ANY growth at all. Investing in a company that's in a long planned decline is almost as bad as working there and expecting good things to happen.
I’m shocked, shocked I say, that the IBM exec’s have figured out how to game the system. IBM board just resign because you have failed! We continue to watch shareholder equity plummet under your governing authority. Enough. Resign because it’s obvious you don’t understand this marketplace
Unless I am mistaken, the board has set executive compensation and bonuses based on earnings per share, not share price, not earnings, not profit, not value, not long-term viability of the company.
And so the executives have in fact succeeded by hook or by crook to increase earnings per share, and the expense of all else.
The overall sentiment is correct. Any investor that invests (not trades) in a company whose incentive is based on anything other than long-term growth and stability is a fool.