With Home Depot and Hewlett Packard both reporting earnings last week, we have now had all 30 of the Dow stock components report their first quarter results.
Wall Street analysts have been furiously raising their quarterly earnings estimates after Target stated on May 7th that they expected results to be “well above the current median First Call estimate of 52 cents.”
Despite the weak global PC market, we expect that Hewlett Packard will report quarterly results that are at the top end of their conservative guidance range.
While top-line sales will still likely show double-digit declines, we expect to see the rate of decline improve from the 17% decline seen in the fourth quarter.
While consumers appear to be cutting back on their travel plans in 2009, Priceline has positioned itself as a value play and is benefiting from both individuals and corporation’s greater focus on reducing costs.
