Hewlett-Packard stock slips as Meg Whitman takes helm

[RandySF]

On Meg Whitman's first day as president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), the Palo Alto tech giant's stock price slipped below the level where it had rested before rumors of her ascension first surfaced.

HP's suffering share price jumped from $22.47 to $23.98, a 7 percent boost, Wednesday on the news that the board of directors was considering dumping then-CEO Léo Apotheker for Whitman, the former eBay (EBAY) CEO and California gubernatorial candidate. However, HP's stock price dropped back to $22.80 during Thursday's Wall Street sell-off that pushed the major stock indexes down more than 3 percent.

On Friday, stocks were rebounding from Thursday's debacle -- except for Hewlett-Packard. At 8:30 a.m. PDT, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq index up by 1 percent and most Silicon Valley tech stocks in the black for the day, HP was down 4 percent to $21.89.

Hewlett-Packard lost almost half its market capitalization as a result of a plunging stock price during Apotheker's 11-month reign at the company, which analysts and insiders say was one of the main reasons he was dismissed Thursday.


http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18961927

[dtexdem]

1. Oh, damn, now I have to boycott HP too.

;-)