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We want to get to IBM earnings just crossing the wire right now. The company's first quarter earnings per share at a buck 60 that is better 18 cents better than the average analyst estimate. Revenue coming in at 14.54 billion, 14.4 billion is what analysts had been predicting here and the company is reaffirming its full year forecast. Second quarter revenue seen at 16.4 to 16.75 billion. That is above. That whole range is above the around 16.3 that analysts had been anticipating. So, if we're looking at sort of the commentary around this, one of the concerns around IBM was as a consulting giant and also as a government contractor, that some of the federal cost cuts imposed by the so-called Doge might have an effect. Um, and it looks like that there was some effect here, but I'm going to keep on looking in here to see what kind of effects they have. It looks like the CEO is saying about 15% reportedly of its contracts with the federal government had been canceled or paused. That's about 100 million dollars in future payments here. But again, even putting that aside, the numbers look like beating estimates here, bookings for AI consulting and software, um up from $6 billion since mid 2023, um and about 80% of those bookings come from consulting, the rest coming from software. So still seeing some strength at this uh at this point in some of those uh in some of those numbers. Um, and Dave Moz is still with me here. Um, so it looks like you know, you were just talking about maybe some this isn't Mack 7 and obviously, but you know, a little bit of maybe optimism coming out from some of these numbers.

Yeah, I think it's actually really it looks like at the highest glance. I'm looking forward to digging into it, but really positive numbers out of IBM. Nice look beats on the top and bottom. And what's interesting is sort of the commentary that you just mentioned on the AI side, right? So IBM, a stock that was left for dead, great turnaround story here. And much of it is that as companies sort of implement the power of AI, particularly generative AI, most are going to need some help doing that. And sort of IBM seemingly is ready to sort of help lead the way on that.

Yeah, it does seem that way. I'm still trying to dig through and look for the release here, um, but it looks like those shares as you can see are higher right now in reaction to this, and this is also on the back of about a 2% gain in the shares today. So not a huge gain, but a gain nonetheless. But you know, as we've seen recently, we'll have to see what the commentary looks like on the conference call. Um, will they talk about tariffs? Probably. Will they talk about consumer spend government spending, excuse me, probably. And so we could see some kind of change potentially based upon that. You know, it's interesting looking into this report because I feel like that government spending portion of IBM is an underappreciated aspect of the company.

Well, yeah, it's interesting. IBM is sort of a company that I think many investors sort of view still under that kind of old school lens. Um, but they're a consulting firm, right, kind of almost first and foremost. And yeah, if we think about where those doge cuts could come, it's probably going to first I'd be first and foremost looking at, do I need this consultant here or this contractor here? And of course, I think they're going to face some pressure from that, maybe less impacted from the tariff side of course than a manufacturer. Um, but still, like anything, a lot of question marks. I think it's positive. It seems as though they've reaffirmed their guidance, which is interesting. Again, as some previous guests have said, we'll see how much guidance really matters, but if they're confident enough and kind of coming out and saying that, particularly as they look out into this uncertainty, I think this is a positive, particularly as we kind of head into sort of the meat of more tech earnings to come.

Yeah, and also that that that second quarter guidance came in above estimates, although maybe that implies that them reaffirming the guidance, the second half of the year, maybe will be a little wobblier. But again, we'll have to see what kind of commentary we get from the call. I don't want to read too much into it.