Will Hewlett-Packard Earnings Move the Dow?

Earnings season is now starting to wind down, with most companies already having reported their quarterly results. But there are still some companies left to report, and Hewlett-Packard is up on Thursday. The key to making smart investment decisions with stocks releasing their quarterly reports is to anticipate how they'll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you'll be less likely to make an uninformed, knee-jerk decision.

Hewlett-Packard was the worst performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2012, falling more than 40%. But the company has rebounded sharply recently on hopes that a turnaround may be coming. Let's take an early look at what's been happening with Hewlett-Packard over the past quarter and what we're likely to see in its quarterly report on Thursday.

Stats on Hewlett-Packard

Source: Yahoo Finance.

Will Hewlett-Packard finally get its mojo back?
HP hasn't inspired much confidence among analysts in recent months, with consensus earnings-per-share figures for the just-ended quarter having dropped fully $0.15, while full-year fiscal 2013 calls are down $0.20 per share. Shareholders, however, have concluded that the stock is a reasonable value play and have boosted share prices by nearly 30% since mid-November.

This quarter was supposed to be a turnaround for HP, as the release of Windows 8 was meant to set the stage for a rebound in PC sales. But that didn't happen, and we're already familiar with much of the aftermath, as sales figures have come in well below what most investors had hoped to see.

Instead, the big news for HP came after its fiscal quarter ended, as Dell announced it was going private with the help of a private-equity firm and some financing from Microsoft . Many analysts immediately concluded that a Dell-Microsoft partnership would be bad for HP, but it may have pushed HP toward making Android-powered devices. Last week, reports surfaced that HP would use a Tegra 4 processor from NVIDIA as the basis for a tablet to rival Microsoft's Surface, and a smartphone may not be too far off. Of course, HP is awfully late to the mobile game, and memories of its failed TouchPad loom large in the company's collective consciousness.

In HP's earnings report, it'll be far more important for the company to explain its strategy going forward than to produce good numbers. For instance, even as HP says it wants to de-emphasize its PC lineup, it recently released a low-priced Chromebook, opening itself up to further low-margin sales. Moves like this sap shareholders' patience, and that's something HP can ill afford after its big declines.

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The article Will Hewlett-Packard Earnings Move the Dow? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Dan Caplinger has no position in any stocks mentioned. You can follow him on Twitter @DanCaplinger. The Motley Fool recommends NVIDIA. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft. 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 Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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