2 hours ago
2
Marc Guberti, The Motley Fool
Wed, April 15, 2026 astatine 11:05 AM CDT 4 min read
Not each tech banal is simply a volatile, growth-fueled concern that is apt to grounds melodramatic terms swings. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) are long-standing dividend payers that connection precocious yields and semipermanent maturation prospects.
Both stocks person betas nether 1, which means they are little volatile than the S&P 500. That makes them peculiarly worthy considering for status portfolios. Less play and coagulated currency travel are large strengths, but if you tin lone adhd 1 of them to your holdings now, here's what you should see earlier making your choice.
Will AI make the world's archetypal trillionaire? Our squad conscionable released a study connected the 1 little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the captious exertion Nvidia and Intel some need. Continue »
Demand for artificial quality (AI) has been a cardinal catalyst for some companies. IBM's watsonx level helps enterprises physique autonomous AI agents, and its hybrid unreality level enables cost-effective, unafraid AI deployment for enterprises.
This setup helped IBM present 12% year-over-year gross maturation successful Q4, with infrastructure and bundle income up by 21% and 14% twelvemonth implicit year, respectively. Revenue maturation accelerated successful Q4 compared to full-year 2025, reflecting the ongoing request surge for AI infrastructure.
Cisco is besides riding the AI tailwinds, and its stock terms has yet climbed backmost supra its dot-com bubble highs. The company's gross accrued by 10% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth successful its fiscal 2026 Q2 (which ended Jan. 24), with AI infrastructure orders representing 13.7% of full revenue.
Cisco focuses much connected hardware, and its Silicon One level rapidly cultivates unified routing and switching, which makes it easier to determination information crossed thousands of AI processors. This exertion helps information centers standard and straight translates into real-world AI uses by enabling high-speed, low-latency connectivity, making Cisco's exertion a foundational portion of AI infrastructure.
Financially, some companies look reasonably akin connected the surface. Cisco's five-year compound yearly gross maturation complaint of 5.1% somewhat edges IBM's 4.7% complaint implicit the aforesaid stretch, portion IBM reported somewhat higher gross maturation than Cisco successful the astir caller quarter. At their existent stock prices, IBM has the higher dividend output arsenic well, but some companies person hiked their payouts annually by low-single-digit percentages for respective years.
English (CA) · 
English (US) · 
Spanish (MX) ·