There are no safe havens in the stock market. Every stock carries risk. But some less than others. This column features stocks that have shown one or more of the following characteristics: less volatility, better earnings, larger market caps, safe and increasing dividends. In these times of turmoil, our goal is to show readers better opportunities for investing with fewer risks.

November 4, 2011 - Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ-NYSE) offers various products, technologies, software, solutions, and services to individual consumers and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as to the government, health, and education sectors worldwide.

Its Enterprise Storage and Servers segment offers industry standard servers, business critical systems, and storage works offerings.

The company's HP Software segment provides enterprise IT management solutions, information management and business intelligence solutions, and communications and media solutions.

Its Personal Systems Group segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, handheld computing devices, calculators and other related accessories, and software and services for the commercial and consumer markets.

The company's Imaging and Printing Group segment provides consumer and commercial printer hardware, printing supplies, printing media, and scanning devices, such as inkjet and Web solutions, laserjet and enterprise solutions, managed enterprise solutions, graphics solutions, and printer supplies.

Its HP Financial Services segment offers leasing, financing, utility programs, and asset recovery services; and financial asset management services for enterprise customers, as well as specialized financial services to SMBs, and educational and governmental entities. The company also provides network infrastructure products under the ProCurve, 3Com, and TippingPoint brand names; and Palm smartphones, as well as licenses its specific technology to third parties. Hewlett-Packard Company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Latest News: September 22

Hewlett Packard replaced its embattled chief executive with the former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, saying that the company's strategy to transform its business was sound, but that it needed new leadership to carry out the plan. The upheaval at H.P. came after several weeks of mounting concerns among board members, senior executives and investors about how the former chief, Léo Apotheker, had handled a major strategy shift at the company announced last month, according to interviews with several people briefed on the board's discussions.

While the board still endorses the strategy change - which includes a possible spinoff of its personal computer business, the closing of a line of mobile devices and the $11.7 billion acquisition of the software maker Autonomy - its members felt that Mr. Apotheker had bungled communicating the plans to H.P. employees and outsiders.

"It's not about the strategy, it's about the guy," said one of the people with knowledge of the board's discussions, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

In an interview, Ms. Whitman, who became a member of the board this year, said the process that had led to Mr. Apotheker's ouster took place over about three months, and came to a head in late August. Once she was aware that she would be a candidate to succeed him, she said, she recused herself from the selection of a successor.

Expectations:
- Fourth quarter (ends October 31): $1.13 vs $1.33 in 2010
- Full year 2011: $4.84 compared to $4.58 last year
- Full year 2012: $4.70 (range of 33 analysts: $4.03 to $5.50)
- Revenues for 2011: $127.2 billion
- Revenues for 2012: $126.81 billion

Important Numbers:
- Trailing P/E: 6.31
- Forward P/E: 5.7
- Price to sales ratio: .42
- Price to book: 1.38
- Operating margins: 10.15%
- Profit margin: 7.3%
- Return on equity: 22.85%
- Return on assets: 6.65%
- Total revenues last 12 months: $128.4 billion
- Total cash: $12.95 billion
- Cash per share: $6.52
- Total debt: $25.76 billion
- Total debt to equity: .66
- Current ratio: $1.15
- Book value per share: $19.39
- Beta: 1.34
- Change in last 52 weeks: - 39.10%
- Total shares Outstanding: 1.99 billion
- Float: 1.99 billion
- Institutions own 74.8% of the stock
- Annual divdend: 48 cents
- Yield: 1.9%

Company Web site: www.hp.com

Ted Allrich