HPQ Falls on Positive Earnings News, Forecast Doubts

After another street-beating earnings announcement I posted about after the bell yesterday, the market sold off HP (NYSE HPQ) today, and the stock closed down over two points today, at $41.10. Just like most times, printers and supplies play a huge role in the top and especially bottom lines, but very little in the Monday morning quarterbacking.

The transcript of the conference call is available online today, but typo alert -- Page 5 states that unit sales of Printer-based MFP's grew at 8% year-over-year, but the official press release gives the number as 80%. (The latter number seems more in line with previous periods' numbers.) Very little about printers in the discussions, although Shannon Cross of Cross Research asked about Eastman Kodak's recently announced inkjet printers (Page 17), to which she got a pretty general reply from CEO Mark Hurd, including the remark that "competition is great" and that HP plans to pretty much stand pat on hardware and supplies pricing relationships.

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