New York, May 23, 2026, 09:03 EDT
HP Inc. shares ended Friday at $25.24, up 15.25%, after a late-week rush into computer-hardware names before another round of earnings. The stock rose in each of the last six trading sessions and finished about 21% above its May 15 close.
The market is not open now. NYSE markets are closed for the weekend and list Monday, May 25, as the Memorial Day holiday, leaving Tuesday as the next regular trading day. HP is due to report fiscal second-quarter results after Wednesday’s close, with a call at 5:30 p.m. ET.
That is why the move matters. Investors pushed the stock up before the numbers, not after them. The report will test whether demand for AI PCs — laptops and desktops built to run some artificial-intelligence work on the device itself — can offset higher parts costs and weakness in printing.
HP’s own bar is already set. In February, the company forecast fiscal second-quarter GAAP diluted EPS, or earnings per share under standard accounting rules, of 52 cents to 58 cents. It put non-GAAP diluted EPS — an adjusted profit figure that excludes items such as restructuring and acquisition-related charges — at 70 cents to 76 cents.
Management tried to keep the tone steady at the time. Interim CEO Bruce Broussard cited “continued momentum in AI PCs,” while CFO Karen Parkhill said HP was working through a “dynamic environment marked by increasing memory costs” and remained focused on mitigation plans. HP
The cost issue is not small. HP warned earlier this year that volatility in memory chips, the components used to store and move data in PCs, could last into next year. The company also said AI PCs made up more than 35% of its total PC shipments in the first quarter, up from 30% in the prior quarter.
But there is a catch. Gartner analyst Rishi Padhi said first-quarter PC shipment growth was “artificially inflated,” driven more by inventory builds before expected price increases than by real end-user demand. That is the risk for HP: a good shipment number may not mean buyers keep paying higher prices once the channel is stocked. Gartner
The competitive backdrop helped. Lenovo, the world’s largest PC maker, reported a better-than-expected 27% jump in quarterly revenue on Friday and its shares rose 15%. Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing told Reuters memory-chip supply was in “heavy shortage” and costs were rising faster, but Lenovo’s results still fed investor appetite for hardware names. Dell and HP then led S&P 500 gainers on Friday, while the broader index posted an eighth straight weekly gain. Reuters
HP also gave income investors a date to watch. The company declared a 30-cent quarterly dividend on May 19, payable July 1 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on June 10.
Wall Street is not all in. JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee raised the firm’s price target on HP to $22 from $19 last week, but kept a Neutral rating. The firm cited easing memory-related concerns for the IT hardware rally, while saying it was more positive heading into earnings on Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
For HP, next week is now about proof. The stock has already priced in some relief. The company has to show that price increases, supply-chain moves and AI-PC demand can protect margins without choking off unit sales. A miss on that point would make Friday’s rally look less like a reset and more like a squeeze before earnings.
