Hewlett-Packard moved up its quarterly earnings release to before the US markets open Tuesday, two trading sessions earlier than planned, after a memo from its chief executive warned of tough conditions.
HP, the largest maker of PCs by revenue, gave no official reason from the timing shift from late on Wednesday. But the move followed quickly on news reports quoting a memo from CEO Leo Apotheker in which he warned that the ensuing three months would be “another tough quarter”.
“We must watch every penny and minimize all hiring”, he wrote to several executives reporting to him, according to accounts on Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal’s online site. “We have absolutely no room for profitless revenue or any discretionary expenditures”.
The warning suggests that tomorrow’s earnings, the second full quarter under Mr Apotheker, will again disappoint HP investors. Shares in the company fell more than 4 per cent in after-hours trading.
Analysts expected HP to have earned $1.21 a share in the quarter just ended, up from $1.09 a year earlier, on a modest 2 per cent sales increase to $31.4bn.
