H-P Moves Analyst Meeting Back to Cali

You know things must be bad when a company starts worrying about the cost of selling itself to Wall Street.

In the wake of a grave deterioration in global demand for computer hardware like PCs and servers, Hewlett-Packard (HWP) is moving its spring analyst meeting from its traditional Manhattan location to Palo Alto, Calif., where the company is headquartered. In an email sent Thursday to investors and securities analysts, the company attributed the move to "the spirit of managing operating expenses in this economic environment."

"That's a pretty interesting indication," emailed an analyst who covers H-P. "This meeting has been in NYC for at least 15-20 years." H-P has seen its share of slowdowns in that time without taking measures like this.

The company appears to be battening down the hatches as it tries to minimize the damage that continuing poor demand could have on profit margins in the second half of the year. Last week, H-P CEO Carly Fiorina told attendees at the CeBit trade show in Hanover, Germany, that she held out no hope of a recovery for the rest of this year, and that the market's weakness was beginning to spread to Europe.

H-P, whose analyst meeting is scheduled for June 6, rose 32 cents Thursday to close at $30.64.

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