Hewlett-Packard's Print Business Struggles

HP announced its latest quarterly earnings after the market’s close Wednesday. For the quarter ending April 30, HP’s $6.1 billion printing business said its revenues were down 1 percent overall, with its commercial hardware sales down 5 percent. But that was better than expected, and improving, CEO Meg Whitman said in a conference call.

Overall, while HP revenues and profits were down sharply from a year ago, they nonetheless were better than Wall Street had expected. And as a result, HP stock took off like a rocket Thursday, ending the day at $24.86, up $3.63 or 17 percent.