IBM top exec makes the case for a quarterly earnings rethink

IBM top exec makes the case for a quarterly earnings rethink

IBM’s earnings whiff could give the Trump administration more ammunition to rethink the quarterly earnings treadmill, which a top company executive called “outdated.”“It forces companies to do irrational things” like offering steep end-of-quarter discounts, IBM Vice Chair Gary Cohn said in an interview. (IBM chose not to do those things this quarter and paid handsomely for it: Its earnings-miss preview shaved $69 billion off its market cap last …