Topic: Growth Stocks

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, May 20, 2011

Article Excerpt

HEWLETT-PACKARD CO., $35.98, New York symbol HPQ, reported better-than-expected quarterly results this week. However, the company also warned that its earnings growth could slow in the current quarter, because more consumers are switching to tablet computers like the Apple iPad. That’s hurting sales of laptop and desktop computers. The stock fell 11% in response to the warning. In its 2011 second quarter, which ended April 30, 2011, Hewlett earned $2.7 billion. That’s up 3.2% from $2.6 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 13.8%, to $1.24 from $1.09, on fewer shares outstanding. These figures exclude one-time items, such as costs to integrate recent acquisitions. On this basis, the latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of $1.21 a share. Revenue rose 2.5%, to $31.6 billion from $30.8 billion. That beat the consensus revenue estimate of $31.5 billion. The company saw revenue gains at most of its divisions, including enterprise servers (up 15%), software (up 17%), and imaging and printers (up 5%)…