Why Investors Are Buzzing about BlackBerry, IBM, Deutsche Bank, and Others

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is hogging the headlines after The New York Times reported that IBM’s Watson’s next task will be to help teachers better teach third grade math. Watson, an artificial intelligence program, had previously beat various famous contestants on Jeopardy and helped doctors with medical diagnoses. For its latest task, IBM exec Stanley S. Litow said, ‘The idea was to build a personal adviser, so a teacher would be able to find the best lesson and then customize the lesson based upon their classroom needs’. This trend of allowing AI to do more and more underscores the technology’s potential and the eventual need of the existing labor force in many sectors to readjust. A total of 53 funds from our database owned shares of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) at the end of the second quarter, unchanged from that of the previous quarter.

According to Die Zeit quoted by Reuters, Germany’s government is prepping a contingency rescue plan for Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB) in the case that the bank can’t raise enough capital to pay for its various litigation expenses, such as the $14 billion that the DoJ recently asked for in return for settling mortgage-related cases dating back to the financial crisis. Under the draft plan, Deutsche Bank would be allowed to sell its assets to other lenders at certain prices that won’t hurt it (not fire sale). In the worst case scenario, the German government could even take a 25% stake. Although the German government has said it won’t bail out the bank, the new stance is understandable. Deutsche Bank doesn’t exactly have the best capital levels in the world and Germany can’t afford another 2008 financial crisis. At the end of June, 15 funds tracked by Insider Monkey owned shares of Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB).

In other banking news, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE:RBS) is making headlines after it agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle allegations with certain U.S. regulators that the bank mis-sold mortgage-backed securities to certain corporate credit unions. Not surprisingly, RBS does not admit any fault. Nine investors followed by our team had a bullish position in Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE:RBS) at the end of the second quarter, down by one from the previous quarter.

Disclosure: None