IBM stock shares hit an all-time high Thursday.
Shares closed at $138.72 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 88 cents from the previous day’s close.
A spokesman for Armonk-based IBM Corp. confirmed it was the highest that the shares had ever reached.
Such comparisons are adjusted to eliminate the effects of stock splits, in which a company typically splits one share into two.
During the day’s trading, shares rose as high as $138.88. Volume was 6.4 million shares, somewhat higher than average. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average, of which IBM is a component, dropped 19.07 points to close at 10,948.58.
The closing price gave Big Blue a market capitalization of nearly $175 billion.
The company went public in 1915. It will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2011.
Chief Executive Officer Samuel Palmisano has shifted IBM’s focus more to services and software, which offer high profit margins. Since he became CEO in 2002, IBM shares have risen from around $104, or a gain of about a third.