What to Look for in HP Earnings

HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) is set to release its fiscal second-quarter earnings report after the markets close on Wednesday. The Thomson Reuters consensus estimates are calling for $0.38 in earnings per share (EPS) on revenue of $11.72 billion. In the same period of last year, EPS came to $0.87 on $25.45 billion in revenue.

This is the printer and personal computer businesses of the old Hewlett-Packard. HP provides products, technologies, software, solutions and services to individual consumers and small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as to the government, health and education sectors worldwide.

The company’s Personal Systems segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, thin client PCs, tablets, retail point-of-sale systems, calculators and other related accessories, software, support and services for the commercial and consumer markets.

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The Printing segment provides consumer and commercial printer hardware, supplies, media, scanning device and software and services, as well as LaserJet and enterprise, inkjet and printing, graphics, and software and web services.

Prior to the release of the earnings report, a few analysts weighed in on the stock:

• Merrill Lynch reiterated a Buy rating.
• Credit Suisse reiterated an Outperform rating with a $19 price target.
• Deutsche Bank reiterated a Buy rating.
• RBC Capital has a Sector Perform rating with a $12 price target.

So far in 2016, HP has performed more or less in line with the broad markets, with the stock up about 4%. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is down about 18%.

Shares of HP were trading up 2.8% at $12.25 Wednesday afternoon, with a consensus analyst price target of $13.39 and a 52-week trading range of $8.91 to $15.72.