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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (31956)	8/16/1999 8:16:00 PM
From: Robert O	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. Proverbs 2:11 But enough about brokers... HP reports: Hewlett-Packard Earnings Beat Forecasts By Andrea Orr PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP - news) Monday reported a sharp rise in its third-quarter profit, building on the recent momentum that has reversed several quarters of disappointing results and brought the company's stock price to a fresh high. The huge Palo Alto, Calif. computing company said the strong results reflected record shipments of consumer PCs, double-digit revenue growth in its printing and imaging businesses, and a turnaround in the test and measurement operations, which are being spun off into a separate company. In addition, business in the Asia Pacific region, an area of concern for the company in some recent quarters, staged a strong comeback, showing 24 percent revenue growth. Overall, Hewlett-Packard said it earned $853 million in the three months ended July 31, compared with $621 million the year before. Excluding the hefty costs of the spin-off, the company said its earnings per diluted share rose to 85 cents in latest quarter, compared with 58 cents in the year-ago quarter. The consensus among analysts who follow the company had been for a third-quarter profit of 80 cents per share, according to First Call/Thomson Financial, which tracks such estimates. The company said unusual costs related to the spin-off of the test and measurement business reduced earnings by about $60 million or 4 cents per share, bringing its net income to 81 cents per share. Wayman also said the company's new ''e-services'' strategy focused on new Internet business opportunities is ''opening new doors for us,'' although he declined to provide any hard numbers. Hewlett-Packard is in the process of completing the spin-off of test and measurements into a separate company called Agilent Technologies, which filed for an initial public offering Monday. The separation is designed in part to let Hewlett-Packard focus more on its core computer activities. Hewlett-Packard's third-quarter revenue increased to $12.2 billion from $11 billion in the same period the year before. Wayman said the company aimed to achieve revenue growth in the 10 to 13 percent range in the fourth quarter, and said the company was encouraged by data in the latest quarter showing overall orders grew faster than revenues. Revenues in the businesses that will make up Agilent Technologies grew 8 percent in the quarter, Hewlett-Packard said. Wayman said the company was seeing solid momentum in Asia, and was watching some uncertainty in the Latin American markets, while ''redoubling our efforts in North America.'' North American revenues rose 8 percent in the quarter, he said, compared with no growth in the first half of the fiscal year. Asked about the expected impact from any Y2K computer problem he said, ''We haven't seen anything that gives us alarm at this point. We're still cautious but at this point there's been nothing.''