IBM (IBM) ended trading Tuesday down more than 25%, its worst drop since at least 1968, after the company preannounced earnings that fell well below Wall Street’s expectations.
Analysts had expected IBM to report adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $3.02 on revenue of $17.86 billion, but the company came up short, posting adjusted EPS of $2.93 and revenue of $17.2 billion.
In a statement, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said the company was prepared for a low-single-digit decline in its z17 mainframe business for the quarter, but the results were far worse than projected and are at least partially related to the global memory shortage.
IBM stock was previously off just 4.8% since the start of the year heading into Tuesday, but it is now off 26%.
The company’s chief competitors aren’t faring much better. Shares of Oracle (ORCL) are off 33% year to date, while Microsoft has declined 20%. Accenture (ACN), meanwhile, is down 50%.
IBM will hold its quarterly earnings call on July 22nd.
