picture alliance / Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Rewind to late February. IBM shares fell 13% in a single session after Anthropic said its Claude model could help modernize old COBOL code. <\/p>\n COBOL is the decades-old programming language still running many banks and government systems.<\/p>\n The fear was simple. If AI could rewrite that code cheaply, IBM\u2019s mainframe and consulting work might shrink. <\/p>\n Related: Barclays sets eye-catching IBM stock price target<\/strong><\/p>\n Wedbush pushed back, arguing AI would speed up modernization projects rather than replace them, and those fears have largely dissipated. The firm now calls the episode the \u201cAI Ghost Trade.\u201d<\/p>\n The numbers gave the bulls cover. In the first quarter of 2026, revenue rose 9% to $15.9 billion, and earnings climbed 19%, according to IBM\u2019s quarterly results. <\/p>\n Software now anchors the model after years of CEO Arvind Krishna steering IBM toward AI.<\/p>\n Ives\u2019s confidence rests on what IBM has built, not slideware. The core is watsonx.data, a system that pulls a company\u2019s scattered information into one place so AI can use it. <\/p>\n IBM says connecting AI agents to that data is 40% more accurate than standard methods, according to IBM.<\/p>\n The company has reinforced that platform through acquisitions, including a roughly $11 billion deal to buy data-streaming firm Confluent, Yahoo Finance reported.<\/p>\n IBM is also leaning hard into quantum computing, where machines could eventually solve problems regular computers cannot.<\/p>\n More AI Stocks:<\/strong><\/p>\n The company is investing more than $10 billion over five years, TipRanks reported, and is building a quantum chip plant called Anderon with the U.S. Commerce Department, with each side committing $1 billion. That news lifted the stock 8%.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ives sees IBM in the early innings of pairing AI with quantum, and management still aims to deliver its first large-scale fault-tolerant quantum machine by 2029.<\/p>\n For all the momentum, IBM has trailed the market it is supposed to be leading. The stock is up about 5%<\/strong> in 2026, while the S&P 500<\/strong> has gained roughly 11%<\/strong> through May, according to U.S. News.<\/p>\n It touched record highs in early June, then fell about 6% on June 3 as higher oil prices and rising Treasury yields squeezed corporate tech, StockStory reported.<\/p>\n Wedbush\u2019s $350 target is a bet that IBM\u2019s AI and quantum push is earning real revenue, not just headlines, and the early numbers back that up.<\/p>\n Still, the stock trades near record highs at a premium price, so the margin for disappointment is thin.<\/p>\n Buying here means paying up for execution that has to keep showing up<\/strong>, quarter after quarter.<\/p>\n Related: IBM CEO sends strong message on quantum computing<\/strong><\/p>\n #Wedbush #resets #IBM #stock #price #target #momentum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few months ago, International Business Machines (IBM) looked like collateral damage in the artificial intelligence boom. Investors worried that the very technology powering the AI rally could quietly chip… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[246],"tags":[7020,4324,100,481,91,1196,264],"class_list":["post-5834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-popular","tag-ibm","tag-momentum","tag-price","tag-resets","tag-stock","tag-target","tag-wedbush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.thestreet.com\/.image\/NDA6MDAwMDAwMDAzMDY2MTE0\/photo-3066114.jpg?profile=rss\")
The AI scare that knocked down IBM stock<\/h2>\n
Inside IBM\u2019s AI engine: watsonx, Confluent, and real savings<\/h2>\n
Signals Wedbush is tracking:<\/h3>\n
\n
Where IBM stock goes next: quantum, risks, and how it stacks up<\/h2>\n
\n
How IBM stacks up, and what could still go wrong<\/h3>\n
What still has to go right for the bull case:<\/h3>\n
\n
The bottom line for IBM investors<\/h2>\n