ARMONK, N.Y. — International Business Machines shares fell 3.22% to $240.31 in midday trading Wednesday, down $7.99, as the stock gave back Tuesday’s gain and traded near the low end of a year that has already cut about 19% from the price.

The stock closed Tuesday at $248.37. The day’s range opened near $240.50 with a low around $239.70. The 52-week span is $199.19 to about $332. Market value is roughly $228 billion to $234 billion. Next earnings are slated for Oct. 21. The dividend is $6.76 a share, a yield near 2.8%.

There was no IBM earnings release on Wednesday. Headlines around the name included a Commerce Department CHIPS award of $1 billion, through Anderon, an IBM company, aimed at a U.S. pure-play quantum foundry, and continued coverage of an IBM-NASA open-source lunar AI model. Those items did not lift the tape. Broader pressure cited in market wraps included higher oil prices, firmer bond yields and bets on further Federal Reserve rate increases.

The last official numbers remain the second quarter. Revenue was $17.2 billion, up 1%. Software rose 5% to $7.8 billion, with Red Hat up 11% and data up 19%. Consulting was flat at $5.3 billion, up 1% at constant currency. Infrastructure fell 7% to $3.8 billion. Transaction processing, the mainframe software line, was down 8%. GAAP earnings were $2.27 a share, down 2%. Operating earnings were $2.93, up 5%. First-half free cash flow was $4.8 billion.

Chairman and Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said the company cut full-year constant-currency revenue growth to 4% to 5% from a prior view of more than 5%. “We are confident in IBM’s strategy and portfolio, and in our ability to capture growth opportunities ahead,” he said in the July 22 release. “We fundamentally believe that we are in the early innings of a structural shift for business, and that our portfolio — across software, infrastructure, and consulting — is well-positioned to help our clients tap the value, and manage the challenges, of an AI-driven future.”

On the call he was blunter about the miss. “With the portfolio we have and the opportunities ahead, it comes down to execution. That is where we fell short in the second quarter.” On software: “The vast majority of our software business, about 80% of that revenue, is recurring in nature and delivered healthy growth in the quarter.” On AI: “Our AI strategy is the right one for IBM and aligns to what we are known for: hybrid, sovereignty, and trust.”

Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh said IBM still expects free cash flow to rise about $1 billion for the year and about 100 basis points of operating pre-tax margin expansion. Software growth is guided at 6% to 8%. Infrastructure is now low-single-digit growth. Consulting is low- to mid-single-digit. The company has committed more than $10 billion to quantum over five years.

Law-firm notices have advertised investigations after a mainframe, or IBM Z, slowdown and a large drop from the 52-week high. Those are solicitations, not findings. Trailing revenue is about $69 billion. Trailing EPS is about $11.27. The forward multiple is near 19 to 22 times. Consensus targets clustered near $245 to $265 in mid-September notes.

Wednesday’s $240 print is not a new thesis. It is the same one from July: software and cash are intact, Z and infrastructure slipped, guidance was cut a point, and the multiple compressed while Nvidia-class AI names ran. A CHIPS quantum grant and a moon model do not close a mainframe quarter. Until October 21 shows whether 4% to 5% growth is the floor, IBM trades as a dividend compounder with an execution gap, not as a high-beta AI proxy. Sellers on Wednesday treated it that way.

SAN FRANCISCO — Jeanie Poling, a guitarist and singer who spent more than four decades at the center of this city’s traditional bluegrass and country circuit, died Aug. 26. She was 67.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported her death on Sept. 10. She died at UCSF Health Stanyan Hospital of pneumonia after what her husband, Chuck Poling, described as a three-and-a-half-year fight with cancer. The Chronicle said she had been treated for two rare cancers since a January 2023 diagnosis and kept playing farmers markets and street fairs in a cowboy hat and boots.

Chuck Poling wrote on Facebook under the heading “MY JEANIE.” “She passed away on August 26 from pneumonia after a three-and-a-half-year battle with cancer. She fought the good fight but knew when to throw in the towel.”

He thanked people who had reached out to him and to their children, Isabel and Reuben. “Even in their own grief for their mother, Isabel and Reuben (and his beautifully compassionate wife Kat) are doing so much to prop me up. I’ve never been prouder of them.”

“I could say so much about Jeanie but can easily sum it up by saying she made all my dreams come true,” he wrote. “I shared 44 years of true love — that elusive magic that so many people search their whole lives and never find — with a beautiful, bright, funny, and oh, so talented woman. A wonderful mother, an amazing singer, and accomplished professional, and my partner, my lover, and my biggest fan.”

To the Chronicle he said: “Jeanie was a remarkable singer, with a powerful voice. She could really get a room to shut up and listen.”

Jeanie Poling was a Long Island transplant. Chuck Poling is a San Francisco native. They performed as Jeanie and Chuck and earlier as Jeanie and Chuck’s Country Roundup, he on mandolin, she on guitar, often sharing one microphone in western clothes. The Chronicle compared the stance to Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton at the Grand Ole Opry. In 2002 they played Hardly Strictly Bluegrass when the festival was still called Strictly Bluegrass.

For about 20 years they hosted a Bluegrass Country Jam at the Plough and Stars in the Inner Richmond. The weekly session stopped when the pandemic closed rooms. They also appeared with groups including Chickwagon Junction and BettyJacks. Chuck Poling has written for the California Bluegrass Association and served as an area vice president.

She left a city job after the 2023 diagnosis, went through surgery and chemotherapy, and kept working stages under the shortened billing Jeanie and Chuck. The Chronicle placed her “at the heart of San Francisco’s bluegrass scene.” That circuit is small: church halls, Irish bars, street fairs, the odd festival slot. It runs on people who book the jam and show up when the door is thin.

There was no national chart run and no major-label campaign. The record of the career is rooms that went quiet when she sang and a Tuesday night that lasted two decades. Friends on the Facebook post called the marriage a model. Those notes are personal, not a box-office tally.

She is survived by her husband and their children. A public memorial has not been announced in the Chronicle account. The music she and Chuck played was the old kind: high tenor, mandolin chop, guitar run, one mic. San Francisco’s bluegrass map is smaller without the voice that could stop a room.

On Tuesday, shares of Dutch semiconductor-equipment maker ASML Holding and smaller rival ASM International were up 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively. BE Semiconductor Industries, the Dutch supplier of semiconductor assembly equipment, was up 0.4%. German chip maker Infineon Technologies declined 0.6%. STMicroelectronics shares fell 0.7%.

Continental Resources on Wednesday announced that it reached an agreement with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company to develop oil in the South American country’s prolific Orinoco Belt.

The memorandum of understanding with Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) will see Continental Resources operate and develop the Ayacucho 2 Block in the Orinoco Belt, which is the main oil field in the country. The announcement indicated that the two parties plan to enter into a long-term production agreement in the coming weeks.

The Ayacucho 2 Block is located north of the Orinoco River in the Venezuelan state of Anzoategui and covers about 126,000 acres, with an estimated 30 billion barrels of oil in the tract. Once the long-term production agreement is executed, Continental will operate the block with a 100% interest, according to the release.

OIL GIANT CHEVRON STRIKES AGREEMENT TO EXPAND VENEZUELA OPERATIONS

A Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) oil storage tank in Cabimas, Zulia state, Venezuela, on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. (Gaby Oraa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Continental Resources said in its announcement that “Ayacucho 2 represents one of the most significant resource opportunities in Continental’s nearly 60-year history,” expanding its long-term development inventory and an expansion of its international presence in a portfolio anchored by its U.S. base.

The company said in its announcement that the Trump administration’s call for American energy companies to help rebuild the Venezuelan oil industry led it to perform an independent evaluation of opportunities in the country. That evaluation, along with changes made by Venezuela’s government to its legal framework for hydrocarbons, opened the door for Continental to pursue the opportunity.

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“We are excited to participate in the revitalization of Venezuela’s energy industry, bringing further economic strength to Venezuela and its people as well as global energy markets. Ayacucho 2 is an extraordinary addition to our portfolio and will contribute significantly to Continental’s growth trajectory,” said Continental Resources CEO Doug Lawler.

“Continental was built to recognize great resource opportunities and have the conviction to pursue them,” said Harold Hamm, founder and chairman emeritus of Continental Resources. “What this company is doing today builds on that foundation while taking Continental to an entirely new level. I could not be more proud of the company, our people and the future we are building.”

Oil pumping hammers are seen in an oil field in Lagunillas, Zulia, Venezuela, on April 28, 2026. (Jose Bula Urrutia/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Continental said the memorandum of understanding allows it to bring private capital, technology, technical expertise and large-scale operating capabilities to the effort to redevelop Venezuela’s oil industry. It added that it plans to evaluate additional opportunities in the country, as well as those in the U.S. and around the world.

An analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) that was last updated in February 2024 noted Venezuela had the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves in 2023, with about 303 billion barrels, which represented 17% of global reserves.

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Despite having a significant share of the world’s oil reserves, Venezuela only produced 0.8% of global crude oil output in 2023, and the total output of 742,000 barrels per day represented a 70% cumulative decline from the country’s production levels in 2013.

Venezuela’s oil output has lagged over the last decade due to a lack of international investment and operational expertise, EIA reported. (Ed Lallo/Getty Images)

Most of Venezuela’s reserves are extra-heavy crude oil from the Orinoco Belt, and the EIA noted that the “extraction of extra-heavy crude oil requires a higher level of technical expertise, which international oil companies possess but their involvement has been limited by international sanctions.”

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“Furthermore, budgetary constraints at Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA and a lack of qualified technical personnel and foreign direct investment have all hampered Venezuela’s oil and natural gas development,” EIA added.

Sometimes, the simplest explanation for something works. And in the case of the Treasury market, it appears that the main reason bond yields are rising is because short-term

interest rates are likely to rise.

There are many risks that can frighten the bond market. Runaway inflation. Unsustainable fiscal deficits. Excessive bond issuance by tech companies. And as 10-year Treasury yields have climbed toward 5%, there has been no shortage of headlines about those threats.

This story about the September 2026 FOMC meeting will be updated with further details.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time in over three years amid concerns over stubborn inflation that has been driven recently by higher energy prices.

Fed policymakers voted 12-0 to raise the federal funds rate from a range of 3.5% to 3.75% to a new target rate of 3.75% to 4%. The 25-basis-point increase marks the first interest rate hike since July 2023 and comes after the Fed left rates unchanged at its first five meetings this year.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the central bank’s panel responsible for monetary policy moves, noted that “Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace. While uncertainty remains elevated owing, in part, to geopolitical developments, domestic spending has been resilient. Productivity growth is strong, and capital investment is robust.”

“Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little. Inflation remains elevated. Today’s policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee’s 2% goal,” the FOMC added.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will discuss the interest rate hike at a press conference. (Eric Lee/Reuters)

The FOMC’s rate hike announcement was accompanied by a summary of economic projections made by policymakers. The median member of the panel projected one more 25-basis-point rate hike this year on the so-called “dot plot” as the FOMC is set to meet again in October and December where further moves could occur.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Entain, the owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, is consulting on cutting around 400 customer-service roles, mainly in the UK, out of a total of around 2,000.

The company had already cut 500 jobs this year before the latest round of redundancies. The move comes as Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, weighs up higher taxes on slot machines, which would affect betting shops and adult gaming arcades.

Letter to the Prime Minister

Stella David, the chief executive of Entain, warned Mr Burnham in an open letter last week that hundreds of betting shops and thousands of jobs would be at risk from further tax rises.

She wrote: “You have spoken about the Makerfield Test, the principle that national policy should deliver for places and people that have too often been overlooked by Westminster.

“A substantial increase in machine games duty (MGD) would bear directly on many of the people and places the Makerfield Test is intended to support.”

According to Ms David, doubling the rate of the levy would add £100m to Entain’s annual tax bill. The standard rate of machine games duty is currently 20 per cent, according to HMRC guidance.

She added: “Independent modelling from EY shows the potential consequences across the sector, indicating that a 40pc MGD rate could lead to up to 1,470 betting shop closures and 15,900 job losses, and ultimately result in a net loss to the Exchequer of around £120m.”

Ms David said job cuts resulting from higher taxes would disproportionately affect young people and women working part-time.

She also wrote: “A further doubling of machine games duty would therefore add another significant cost to businesses already struggling to absorb major tax increases, stacking the odds against labour-intensive high-street operators and making it harder to sustain shops, jobs and investment in local communities.”

Government and industry positions

Mr Burnham and John Healey, the Chancellor, are understood to believe that slot machine venues open 24 hours a day are damaging lives and high streets.

Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, is among those calling for higher taxes on gambling.

Industry leaders have warned that further tax rises on the sector would push gambling towards unregulated markets, which they say cause more harm. Other operators have made similar warnings before, with Betfred saying last year that higher gambling taxes could close 1,300 betting shops.

Rachel Reeves, the former chancellor, raised taxes on online gambling from 1 April this year, with a further levy due to take effect a year later. The changes are forecast to raise an extra £1.2bn from the sector by the start of the next decade. At the time, William Hill owner Evoke warned that thousands of jobs were at risk after the online gaming tax increase.

Hiring slowdown

The Entain cuts come against a wider fall in employment. Figures published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics showed 145,000 fewer people on payrolls in August than a year earlier. The ONS said the August estimate is provisional and likely to be revised.

Retail has recorded the largest job losses, according to the figures.

Increases to the minimum wage above inflation and a £26bn rise in employer National Insurance contributions under the current Government have been cited as factors behind the economy-wide slowdown in hiring.

About the author

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

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