Hewlett Packard Raised Guidance (HPQ, DELL)

Hewlett Packard (HPQ-NYSE) has raised guidance this morning for fiscal Q2.  The company "accidentally" sent an email last night and determined that it would be best to release the data this morning.  The company will give formal earnings on May 16.  Revenues were put at $25.0 to $25.55 billion versus $24.6 Billion estimates.  The EPS guidance was also hiked to $0.69-0.70 vs $0.65 estimates.

The company stated previously that it anticipated revenue of approximately $24.5 billion, non-GAAP diluted EPS in the range of $0.63 to $0.64  The increase in second quarter revenue and EPS guidance was driven by strong operational results in the Personal Systems Group and in industry-standard servers. In addition, EPS benefited from higher levels of share repurchases during the quarter.

HP estimates third quarter 2007 revenue of approximately $23.7 billion to $23.9 billion, non-GAAP EPS in the range of $0.63 to $0.65; estimates are $23.6B & $0.61.

This is almost exactly in-line with what Jim Cramer had telegraphed just last week.  Even shares of Dell (DELL) are indicated up almost 1% pre-market on this news.  If these levels hold on HPQ, this will be new 5-year highs.

Jon C. Ogg
May 8, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in any of the companies he covers.