H-P Charts: Suspicious Price Advance

Hewlett-Packard's(HPQ Quote) bid for 3Com(COMS Quote) Wednesday apparently was well-orchestrated.

The stock barely blipped lower on the news in after-hours trading. With HPQ sitting near its 52-week highs, do the charts support this price or an even higher price?

We'll start with the daily chart this time, because it is the most favorable view of Hewlett-Packard. Here you can see a rising channel that was suspect bullish but now is confirmed bullish on the short-term time frame.

Nothing wrong here except that prices are nearing the top end of the channel, so upside is limited near-term irrespective of earnings and takeovers. It's when we turn to the intermediate and long-term trends that the suspicious nature of the price advance comes into full view.