The short interest in HP (HPQ) for January rose over 5 million shares to 35 million. Concerns about CEO Mark Hurd’s stock sales during the company’s back-dating investigation or the potential of slower revenue at the big tech company may be worrying investors.
Hurd said that his stock sales was unrelated to HP’s probe and that he had clearance from company attorneys. Whether this will satisfy the Congressional committee looking into the matter remains to be seen.
HP has also stated that its revenue should surpass $100 billion this year, That will require a strong IT market and robust sales of the company’s servers, PCs and printers. Any stumble would be bound to hurt the company’s stock.
There is the matter of the stock price. At $42, it is up well over 100% over the last two years while rivals like IBM (IBM) are nearly flat.
The air is thin up there, and there is a long way to fall.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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