Instant View: Intel, IBM surpass Wall Street targets

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Intel Corp <INTC.O> forecast revenues well above Wall Street's targets, sending its shares higher in after hours trade.

International Business Machines <IBM.N> results also outpaced expectations and it raised its full-year profit forecast.

Commentary:

IBM:

KIM CAUGHEY FORREST, SENIOR ANALYST, FORT PITT CAPITAL GROUP

"Growth in North America was very strong, probably stronger than I had anticipated and it's great the company was able to hold gross profit margins relatively high.

"The concern is they didn't really guide a whole lot higher than they had originally for the year, if you take into account the earnings surprise. That's a little disappointing.

"I'm very interested in some sort of detailed commentary from the company in terms of what their short term signings are, that's always an indicator for the longer term growth of the company."

TED PARRISH, CO-PORTFOLIO MANAGER, HENSSLER EQUITY FUND

"These numbers shows IBM's resiliency. They beat on just about every area I had hoped. They had strong bookings still, backlogs growing. Margins are holding up across the board.

"It's a margins story, and an emerging markets growth story too. Seems they're firing on all cylinders. Japan was a concern since they have so much exposure but what strikes me is they raised their guidance for the year, which gives me confidence that the Japan situation didn't affect them as much as you would think."

RICHARD SICHEL, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER AT PHILADELPHIA TRUST CO

FRED HICKEY, EDITOR, HIGH TECH STRATEGIST

"Everything looks to be in line, that is what is to be expected. Revenue was up more than expected. I didn't expect any problems. They don't have the component issues that others do -- like Seagate today -- that were affected by the Japanese earthquake.

"It was a good report but it wasn't unexpected."

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba and Yinka Adegoke in New York and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco)