Cloud, services fuel IBM's profit forecast

IBM Corp beat Wall Street quarterly earnings estimates and also forecast 2019 profit above expectations on Tuesday, in the latest indication that Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty's efforts to turn around the technology services company were gaining traction.

Shares rose 7 percent in extended trading after IBM also posted its first annual revenue growth since 2011.

Rometty, who has been CEO since 2012, has steered the company toward faster-growing segments such as cloud, software and services and away from traditional hardware products, but not without a bumpy journey. The newer areas of focus have sometimes underwhelmed investors.

Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh told Reuters that IBM signed roughly $16 billion worth of contracts in the quarter, its strongest by that measure in a long time.