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Technology Stocks : HWP -- Hewlett Packard -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazlo Pierce who wrote (2159)	5/14/1998 4:45:00 AM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4722

From the WSJIE (top story) "H-P issued its warning after stock markets closed. In New York Stock Exchange composite trading Wednesday, its shares had finished at $81.625, up $1.75. The shares were down $10 in after-hours trading, according to Instinet. "No good deed goes unpunished," said Steve Pavlovich, H-P's director of investor relations. "We had a clean [inventory] position, but had to keep up with what others where doing" by price cutting. Mr. Pavlovich added that he didn't think the PC-pricing situation will improve in the fiscal third quarter. H-P lost money on its business-PC operations, a fact that was made all the more striking by how quickly the overall PC operation is growing. Dataquest Inc., for example, recently reported that the PC unit shipments at H-P grew by 72% in the quarter ended Mar. 31 from the year-earlier period." ------------ The story also says that HP only "this week" figured out that they would miss earnings estimates. Re your comment noone has mentioned the fact that HWP HAD to have known about missing these #s awhile ago. No, I disagree. HP has over 100 different product divisions, not to mention they are a world-wide corporation, very geographically diverse. Accountants (I am one) are not magicians or soothesayers. Pulling the numbers together takes time. Until you have all the numbers, you can only guess how they will come out. There are tax laws to take into account also; it's not just a matter of adding up sales figures and subtracting "expenses". Further, public corporations by law must use accrual accounting, which means counting costs, whether they are actually paid yet or not. Then there is depreciation to be figured on every new piece of equipment and building acquired during the quarter, and depreciation and capital gain/loss figured on every piece of equipment and building sold or "retired". The fact that HWP whipped the numbers together only nine business days after the quarter ended is to me spectacularly fast.