As the second quarter earnings season draws to a close, it is becoming clear that technology is one of the hardest hit sectors. Corresponding CSI MarketsAs of August 29, 2022, the performance of the technology sector is down 23% year-to-date.
However, there are three tech companies that are willing to increase shareholder value by increasing earnings performance, offering share buybacks, or increasing dividend payments.
IBM
International Business Machines Corp. IBM offers a dividend yield of 5.06% or $6.60 per share annually and makes quarterly payments with a strong track record of growing its dividends for 28 years. As of 2021, IBM operates in 175 countries and employs around 350,000 people who mainly sell software, IT services, consulting and hardware.
In the second quarter, IBM achieved sales of 15.5 billion US dollars. That is 9% more than a year ago. The company expects consolidated free cash flow to be around $10 billion.
Seagate
Seagate Technology Holdings plc STX offers a dividend yield of 3.86%, or $2.80 per share annually on quarterly payments, with a decent track record of increasing its dividends for three consecutive years. Seagate Technology is a leading provider of hard disk drives for data storage in the enterprise and consumer markets. For the full year, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company paid $610 million in cash dividends and used $1.8 billion to repurchase 20 million common shares, or 9% of its outstanding shares.
See also: Why lose money in a bear market? These stocks are bucking the trend
HB
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. HPE offers a dividend yield of 3.50%, or 48 cents per share annually through quarterly payments, with a mixed track record of growing its dividends. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is a provider of IT infrastructure products and services and employs around 60,000 people as of 2021.
The Palo Alto, California-based company used $1 billion in cash during the quarter to repurchase approximately 27.4 million shares of its common stock…
