2-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: Hewlett-Packard?

Updated

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, IT products and services giant Hewlett-Packard (NYS: HPQ) has received a distressing two-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at HP's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

HPfacts

Headquarters (founded)

Palo Alto, Calif. (1939)

Market Cap

$34.6 billion

Industry

Computer hardware

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$122.5 billion

Management

CEO Margaret Whitman (since 2011)
CFO Catherine Lesjak (since 2007)

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

9.2%

Cash/Debt

$9.5 billion / $29.8 billion

Dividend Yield

2.9%

Competitors

Apple
Dell
IBM


Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 29% of the 2,315 members who have rated HP believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

A few months ago, one of those Fools, All-Star NHWeston, succinctly summed up the HP bear case for our community:

This company is rudderless. ... [HP] is involved in a range of important technologies but they really aren't first-tier at any of them. Who and/or what breaks out of mediocrity, especially if the global economy remains [asthmatic]?

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Want to see how well (or not so well) the stocks in this series are performing? Follow theTrackPoisedToCAPS account.

The article 2-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: Hewlett-Packard? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Apple and IBM. Motley Fool newsletter services have also recommended creating a synthetic long position in IBM and a bull call spread position in Apple. The Fool owns shares of Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.

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