Bill Miller defends IBM's buyback strategy

IBM's critics say the last thing the company should be doing is buying back its stock. But the company has at least one prominent backer on its side: fund manager Bill Miller.

The Legg Mason legend took to Twitter Monday to defend IBM in the face of criticism from another investing heavyweight, Stanley Druckenmiller.

Druckenmiller, in a "Closing Bell" interview, said he thought IBM was facing a secular problem rather than a cyclical one.

"And if you think a company has a secular problem, particularly with sales being lower than they were six years ago when the economy was much worse, the last thing they should be doing is buying back stock," he said.

Miller disagreed.

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IBM shares rose 0.6 percent to $161.46 in early trade Tuesday. The stock was the worst performer in the Dow Jones industrial average in each of the last two years.