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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for HP Inc. (HPQ) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-10-07): Designation Watch · Gem Score -5 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality 1 · Value -9 · Sentiment -53 (timing only, not weighted) · Composite fair value $49.76 vs $30.52 at analysis
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profile-header/price-overview— company profile, live quote, market capextended-analysis— the core: three AI lens reads with findings, scores, and the analyst memofuture-predictions— our forward price-band predictionsmarket-narrative/ai-findings/gpt-critique— narrative context, cross-model findings, and an adversarial critique of our own analysis (near the end of the document)- Members-only sections (render as login gates for anonymous readers):
price-history,income-trend,key-metrics,financials(statement tables),insider-trading. The analysis above is public; the raw data tables require a free account.
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any ticker resolves at delvantic.com/stock/TICKER ·
raw inputs are public-company filings and market data (via licensed data feeds);
every model, score, lens read, and prediction on this page is Delvantic's own analysis.
HP Inc.
HPQ NYSEHP Inc. is an information technology company that provides personal computers, monitors, workstations, printers, and imaging supplies for consumers, businesses, and public-sector customers. Its core offerings center on personal systems and printing, including laptops, desktops, hybrid devices, ink and toner, managed print services, and related software and support. HP also serves commercial clients with devices and services designed for hybrid work, security, fleet management, and document workflows. The company’s products are used across home, office, education, healthcare, and enterprise environments, making it a major supplier in the global PC and printing markets. HP Inc. is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and focuses on hardware, consumables, and service-driven solutions that connect digital work and print operations.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 2.65
Total Equity: -$346.00M
Shares: 953,000,000
Total Debt: $9.67B
Cash: $3.69B
EBITDA: $4.09B
Total Debt: $9.67B
Cash: $3.69B
Revenue: $55.30B
Revenue: $55.30B
Revenue: $55.30B
Total Equity: -$346.00M
Tax Rate: 5.2%
Equity: -$346.00M
Total Debt: $9.67B
Cash: $3.69B
Current Liabilities: $29.26B
Long-Term Debt: $8.82B
Total Debt: $9.67B
Total Equity: -$346.00M
Shares: 953,000,000
Shares: 953,000,000
CapEx: -$897.00M
Shares: 953,000,000
Stock Price: $30.52
Net Income: $2.53B
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 30, 2026 4:17am (38d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $63.5B | $62.9B | $53.7B | $53.6B | $55.3B |
| Cost of Revenue | $50.1B | $50.6B | $42.2B | $41.7B | $43.9B |
| Gross Profit | $13.4B | $12.3B | $11.5B | $11.8B | $11.4B |
| Operating Expenses | $8.1B | $7.7B | $8.1B | $8.0B | $8.2B |
| Operating Income | $5.3B | $4.6B | $3.5B | $3.8B | $3.2B |
| Net Income | $6.5B | $3.1B | $3.3B | $2.8B | $2.5B |
| EBITDA | $6.1B | $5.3B | $4.3B | $4.6B | $4.1B |
| EPS | $5.38 | $3.02 | $3.29 | $2.83 | $2.67 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $5.33 | $2.98 | $3.26 | $2.81 | $2.65 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 30, 2026 4:00am (38d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $4.3B | $3.1B | $3.1B | $3.2B | $3.7B |
| Total Current Assets | $22.2B | $19.7B | $18.0B | $20.8B | $22.5B |
| Total Assets | $38.6B | $38.5B | $37.0B | $39.9B | $41.8B |
| Current Liabilities | $29.1B | $26.2B | $24.5B | $28.7B | $29.3B |
| Long-Term Debt | $6.4B | $10.8B | $9.3B | $8.3B | $8.8B |
| Total Liabilities | $40.3B | $41.5B | $38.1B | $41.2B | $42.1B |
| Total Equity | -$1.7B | -$3.0B | -$1.1B | -$1.3B | -$346.0M |
| Retained Earnings | -$2.5B | -$4.5B | -$2.4B | -$2.7B | -$2.0B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 30, 2026 4:29am (38d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $6.4B | $4.5B | $3.6B | $3.7B | $3.7B |
| Capital Expenditure | -$582.0M | -$791.0M | -$609.0M | -$592.0M | -$897.0M |
| Free Cash Flow | $5.8B | $3.7B | $3.0B | $3.2B | $2.8B |
| Acquisitions (net) | -$854.0M | -$2.8B | -$7.0M | -$58.0M | -$116.0M |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | -$1.2B | -$693.0M | -$1.7B | -$213.0M | -$1.4B |
| Dividends Paid | -$938.0M | -$1.0B | -$1.0B | -$1.1B | -$1.1B |
| Stock Buybacks | -$6.2B | -$4.3B | -$100.0M | -$2.1B | -$850.0M |
| Net Change in Cash | -$565.0M | -$1.2B | $87.0M | $21.0M | $460.0M |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Aug 30, 2026 4:17am (38d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | -0.9% | -14.6% | -0.3% | +3.2% |
| Gross Profit Growth | -8.6% | -6.2% | +2.7% | -3.6% |
| Operating Income Growth | -14.0% | -24.2% | +10.5% | -16.9% |
| Net Income Growth | -51.8% | +4.2% | -15.0% | -8.9% |
| EBITDA Growth | -12.3% | -19.3% | +7.9% | -12.0% |
Dividend History (Last 20)
Last updated: Aug 30, 2026 4:00am (38d ago)| Date | Dividend | Declaration | Record | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-10 | $0.30 | — | — | — |
| 2026-03-11 | $0.30 | — | — | — |
| 2025-12-11 | $0.30 | — | — | — |
| 2025-09-10 | $0.29 | — | — | — |
| 2025-06-11 | $0.29 | — | — | — |
| 2025-03-12 | $0.29 | — | — | — |
| 2024-12-11 | $0.29 | — | — | — |
| 2024-09-11 | $0.28 | — | — | — |
| 2024-06-12 | $0.28 | — | — | — |
| 2024-03-12 | $0.28 | — | — | — |
| 2023-12-12 | $0.28 | — | — | — |
| 2023-09-12 | $0.26 | — | — | — |
| 2023-06-13 | $0.26 | — | — | — |
| 2023-03-07 | $0.26 | — | — | — |
| 2022-12-13 | $0.26 | — | — | — |
| 2022-09-13 | $0.25 | — | — | — |
| 2022-06-07 | $0.25 | — | — | — |
| 2022-03-08 | $0.25 | — | — | — |
| 2021-12-07 | $0.25 | — | — | — |
| 2021-09-07 | $0.19 | — | — | — |
Deep Analysis
Risk : Reward — upside vs downside from this company's own quarters
Computed 2026-10-05 02:02A +1σ run of quarters pays +4%; a −1σ run costs 48%. Ratio 0.1:1 (μ 5.3%, σ 6.7% , 16 pairs).
Older method (repeat-worst-quarter): 10.8 : 1
| Case | Growth | Margin | Fair value | vs price ($30.52) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull — recovery | +13% | 17.3% | $119.49 | +292% |
| Base — stabilizes | +9% | 15.0% | $90.55 | +197% |
| Bear — keeps slipping | +4% | 12.8% | $66.98 | +119% |
| Stress — last quarter repeats | +4% | 3.9% | $22.31 | -27% |
| Upside — a +1σ run of quarters (v2) | +12% | 4.4% | $31.81 | +4% |
| Stress — a −1σ run of quarters (v2) | -1% | 3.2% | $15.93 | -48% |
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Growth Outlook
Analyzed 2026-08-30 04:38The question every valuation on this page silently assumes: is this company likely to grow? Judged forward — the business, its category, the world — against what's already printed.
Claude Reading
Looking at the raw quarterly tape first: revenue has actually reaccelerated modestly — the last four quarters print $14.64B, $14.44B, $14.41B, $15.68B versus prior-year $14.06B, $13.50B, $13.22B, $13.93B. That's roughly 5-6% YoY in the most recent quarter, better than the 1.5% five-year CAGR suggests. But net income tells the opposite story: TTM NI is roughly $2.45B versus $2.64B a year prior, and margins have compressed from 6.4% (Oct-24) to 4.2% (Jul-26) with a 3.1% trough in Apr-26. So the top line is stabilizing while unit economics deteriorate — likely a mix of tariff pass-through, memory/component inflation, and AI-PC transition costs eating into gross margin (which fell from 22% to 20.6% annually). This is not "melting ice cube" — it's "cyclical margin squeeze on a stable revenue base." Different problem, different fair value.
The synthesis verdict ($42.91 signal-adjusted, +40% upside) and the Market Forces "value trap" call are directly contradictory, and both are lazy. The synthesis leans on a DCF that appears to extrapolate normalized ~5-6% margins; if I haircut to the trailing 4% net margin on $56B revenue, I get ~$2.24B in earnings, and at a defensible 10-11x (mature, low-growth, levered) that's a $22-25B equity value, or $24-28/share. At current $30.52, HPQ is closer to fairly valued than 40% cheap. The bull composite is quietly assuming margin mean-reversion that the last four quarters actively refute. Meanwhile the Market Forces "no credible turnaround path" ignores that FCF is still $2.8B annually on a $27.5B market cap — a 10% FCF yield funds the 3.9% dividend twice over with room for buybacks. That's not a value trap; value traps don't generate 10% FCF yields consistently.
The negative equity ($-346M) is a red herring that keeps spooking models. HP has run negative book equity for years because of aggressive buybacks — it's a capital return artifact, not distress. Net debt of $6B against $2.8B FCF is ~2.1x, elevated but manageable for a hardware business with sticky supplies revenue. The real contrarian worry the models miss: insider activity is entirely one-directional selling with option exercises being immediately monetized (Aug 2026 shows 42K shares sold across three days plus another 21K same-week). Zero opportunistic buying at $30 from anyone who runs the company. If management thought fair value were $43-49, they'd be buying — the company itself buys back stock, but insiders personally aren't. That's a tell. Also, the Q2 (Apr-26) 3.1% margin was the second time in five quarters margins printed at that level; this isn't one-off, it's a pattern.
I dissent from the synthesis's undervalued call and dissent from Market Forces' value-trap framing — both overshoot. My read: HPQ is fairly valued to modestly cheap at $30.52, with fair value in the $32-36 band assuming margins recover halfway to the 5% zone. The 3.9% dividend plus ~2% buyback yield gives you a ~6% shareholder return floor even if the stock goes nowhere, which is a defensible base rate for a mature hardware name in a rate-cutting cycle. The upside case requires either (a) AI-PC refresh actually driving ASP expansion into FY27, or (b) print supplies stabilizing at higher margin — both plausible, neither certain. Downside case is another 300bps of margin compression, which takes earnings to ~$1.8B and the stock to $22-24. Skew is slightly positive but nothing like the +40% the composite claims. Narrative Economics is right that this trades on cash return, not story — which means the re-rating catalyst the synthesis hopes for probably doesn't exist absent a genuine margin surprise. Hold if you own it for the yield; not a table-pound buy.
GPT Reading
HP is not a growth story, but the data do not support the most bearish “melting ice cube” version either. Revenue troughed in 2023–2024 and is now clearly recovering: the last four reported quarters are $13.50B, $13.22B, $13.93B, and $14.64B in FY2025, followed by $14.44B, $14.41B, and $15.68B in FY2026 to date. That latest quarter was up 12.6% versus the $13.93B comparable a year earlier, and the trailing four-quarter run rate is about $59.2B versus $55.3B in FY2025. So the market setup implied by a 0.53x sales multiple and 11.5x earnings multiple is still pricing HP like a flat-to-declining revenue base, while the actual top line has turned modestly positive. The problem is that this recovery is low quality: FY2025 operating income fell to $3.17B from $3.82B in FY2024 despite higher revenue, gross margin slipped to 20.6% from 22.1%, and net income declined to $2.53B from $2.78B. In other words, HP is selling more boxes, but at worse economics.
That margin pressure is the core of the story. Quarterly net margins have bounced between 3.1% and 6.4%, but the recent pattern is concerning: 6.4% in the Oct-2024 quarter down to 4.2%, then 3.1%, back to 5.5%, 5.4%, and then only 3.8%, 3.1%, 4.2% in the latest three quarters. Even on an annual basis, operating margin has compressed from 8.3% in 2021 to 5.7% in 2025. If you annualize the latest three quarters’ earnings power, you do not get a business inflecting sharply upward; you get one earning roughly $2.4B–$2.6B with thin error tolerance. That makes the “DCF says 40% upside” conclusion too generous for me. A business with 20.6% gross margin, 5.7% operating margin, and current ratio below 0.77 deserves a discount when its end markets are mature and pricing power is suspect. Still, at $30.52, the equity is not expensive if you believe earnings can merely hold around current levels, because $2.8B of free cash flow on a $27.5B market cap is a ~10% FCF yield and the 3.9% dividend looks covered by both FCF and a 43% payout ratio.
The balance sheet is ugly optically and manageable economically. Negative equity of $346M looks alarming but is largely the byproduct of years of capital returns rather than an imminent solvency issue; the better lens is net debt of roughly $6.0B against $3.7B of operating cash flow and $2.8B of free cash flow. That is not pristine, but it is serviceable. EV/revenue of 0.63x and EV/EBITDA of 8.5x are not distressed multiples, though—they already assume HP remains a cash machine. So I do not see a huge mispricing either way. The market is roughly right that this is a mature earner with decent cash conversion and no structural path to a meaningfully higher multiple unless margins stabilize. The stock looks more like a yield-plus-buyback value compounder in the low single digits than a re-rating candidate to $40+ absent evidence that the revenue recovery can stop leaking through gross margin.
The best case against my skepticism is straightforward: earnings may be at a cyclical trough while revenue is already reaccelerating, which would create operating leverage if mix normalizes. The latest quarter’s $15.68B revenue and $661M net income were both above the prior two quarters, and if HP can sustain something like a $59B–$61B revenue base with even a return to FY2024 operating margin of 7.1%, operating income would move back toward $4.2B+, making today’s valuation plainly cheap. The cash flow profile is also better than the income statement suggests; $3.7B operating cash flow and $2.8B free cash flow on $55.3B of revenue is solid for a hardware company, and the market may be over-penalizing secular print fears that are already old news. If a no-growth hardware name can fund a near-4% dividend, buy back stock, and hold earnings roughly flat, 11.5x earnings can be too low. That is the strongest bullish argument, and it is credible.
What would change my mind is not another revenue beat by itself; HP has already shown it can grow revenue a bit. I would need to see margin repair. Specifically, if the next two quarters show gross margin back above 21.5% and net margin consistently above 5%, with annualized free cash flow holding above $3.0B, I would become constructive because that would suggest the recent growth is not being bought at uneconomic prices. Conversely, if revenue stays above $14.5B per quarter but net income remains stuck around 3%–4% margin, that would confirm HP is running harder just to stand still, and even $30 would be no bargain.
Grok Reading
The numbers do not describe a company in free fall. HP’s trailing four quarters sum to roughly $59.2B of revenue run-rate, with the July 2026 print at $15.68B the strongest quarter in the entire series and a clear step-up from the $13.2–$14.6B range that defined FY2024–early FY2025. Annual revenue bottomed near $53.6B in FY2024 and recovered to $55.3B in FY2025; the computed 1.5% revenue CAGR and +3.2% recent yoy growth confirm the post-pandemic hangover has stopped getting worse. Free cash flow of $2.80B on a $27.5B equity value equates to a double-digit FCF yield, easily covering the 3.9% dividend at a 43% payout. Operating cash flow of $3.70B against only $897M of capex underscores a capital-light cash machine still throwing off real dollars. At 11.5x earnings, 0.53x sales and 8.5x EV/EBITDA the market is not paying for any of that durability.
What the market is correctly punishing is earnings quality and the balance sheet. Net income has compressed from $3.26B (FY2023) to $2.53B (FY2025) while operating income fell from $3.82B to $3.17B; the –12% earnings CAGR and –8.9% recent earnings yoy are the real story, not the modest top-line bounce. Gross margin sits at 20.6% and operating margin at 5.7%—thin for a hardware franchise that once cleared mid-single-digit-plus operating margins with ease. Negative equity of –$346M, $9.67B of debt against $3.69B of cash, and a current ratio of 0.77 leave almost no margin for error or large-scale reinvestment. Insider activity is a steady drip of sales after option exercises, not accumulation. The valuation synthesis fair value near $43 therefore looks too generous; it embeds a growth and multiple re-rating the income statement has not earned.
The strongest opposing case is straightforward: this is a melting ice cube whose printing consumables moat is structurally eroding while PCs remain a low-growth, share-loss business. A smart bear cites the five-year collapse from $63B revenue and $5.3B operating income (FY2021) to today’s thinner profits, the negative equity trap, and the fact that every incremental dollar of revenue is arriving at lower conversion. Market Forces correctly flags that HP is losing relative position inside a still-growing PC cycle and that printing faces terminal digital substitution. On that reading the 11.5x P/E and 8.5x EV/EBITDA are not discounts—they are terminal-value multiples for a business that will slowly shrink FCF and eventually cut the dividend. I weigh that case seriously but do not fully accept it: the last six quarters show sequential revenue stabilization, FCF remains robust at $2.8B, and a 10%+ FCF yield with a covered 3.9% dividend already compensates for a multi-year glide path. The stock is cheap relative to cash generation even if it never re-rates to a growth multiple.
What would flip the verdict is two consecutive quarters of operating margin back above 7% with flat-to-up revenue, or a clear acceleration in high-margin managed print / services mix that lifts net income yoy rather than just revenue. Conversely, an FCF print below $2B or a dividend cut would confirm the value-trap thesis and push fair value into the mid-20s.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
HP Inc. is a mature, cash-generative hardware business that consistently converts earnings to cash (OCF/NI 1.26x, FCF ~$2.80B in FY25) and returns capital aggressively — diluted shares have compressed from 1.22B to 953M (roughly -6% CAGR) with buybacks running 652% of SBC. Earnings quality screens clean: accruals -1.9% of assets, Beneish M -2.49, and FCF has funded the buyback without leaning on issuance. That is the strength side of the ledger, and it is real.
Verify before trusting this (6)
- Segment mix and margin trend in Personal Systems vs Printing — where is the operating margin erosion concentrated
- Debt maturity schedule and interest coverage detail; refinancing exposure
- Supplies/print recurring revenue trajectory — the true cash engine
- Any goodwill/intangibles from Poly acquisition and impairment risk
- Pension and off-balance-sheet obligations feeding the negative net cash figure
- Whether buyback pace is sustainable given FCF trending down from $5.8B to $2.8B
The e2e composite fair value of $48.90 (signal-adjusted $42.91, 41% upside) leans heavily on an anchored-PE of $79.70 that assumes a multiple this business no longer deserves given four straight years of declining revenue, margins, and net income on a leveraged balance sheet. I discount that leg hard. The DCF at $45.70 and the EPV floor of $24.48 bracket a more honest deserved value in the $32-$40 range for a Mixed-quality, cash-generative but slowly shrinking PC/print franchise.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Print consumables revenue trajectory and attach rates in latest 10-Q
- PC segment operating margin trend vs peers
- FCF conversion and buyback pace guidance
- Net debt trajectory and refinancing costs
- Any managed-print-services growth disclosures
HPQ walked into earnings as a low-narrative, low-cult 'fallen angel' and walked out with a fresh bearish talking point: revenue beat, but PC unit shipments fell 16% and margins compressed on memory/commodity costs. The stock got tagged down ~5-6% and Morgan Stanley explicitly flagged that 'pricing strength is masking a more difficult operating picture' — that is the kind of analyst line that anchors sentiment for weeks. With a fragile bull story (defensive cash return) and no cult following to buy the dip on faith, there is no narrative buffer here. A mildly risk-on tape at 1.19 beta is a small tailwind, but it is nowhere near enough to offset a live 'margins are deteriorating' storyline on a hardware incumbent already tagged as structurally challenged. Net pressure leans negative, not catastrophic — this is an ordinary-to-real headwind, not a crisis. The name will trade heavy until either the margin narrative is refuted next quarter or analysts stop downgrading the setup.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Whether sell-side estimate revisions over the next 2-3 weeks skew negative (confirming the Morgan Stanley frame) or stabilize
- Any follow-through downgrades or price-target cuts citing memory/commodity cost pressure
- Whether the AI PC narrative gains traction in analyst notes — could flip the story from 'declining hardware' to 'refresh cycle beneficiary'
- Sector tone on peers (DELL, LNVGY) — a peer-wide margin scare would deepen the headwind
The world is pulling silicon and memory supply toward AI datacenters, and HP sits on the wrong side of that trade twice: it gets none of the AI infrastructure revenue, and it pays higher input costs because of it. Meanwhile the corporate PC installed base is being force-refreshed by a Windows support deadline — a genuine, dateable demand event that flatters the current line but borrows from the next one. Offices print less every year, and that trend has no reversal mechanism. Net: a cash-generative incumbent in two mature markets, temporarily lifted by a cycle and temporarily squeezed by a cost shock, with cost-out and share retirement doing the work that unit growth no longer does.
When we made this prediction on Aug 30, 2026, HPQ was $30.52. We expect it to be $35.80 by Mar 2027, and we consider it great value under $26.00. This is an early model (v0.6.0) — the direction is more reliable than the exact price. Made Aug 30, 2026.
Blue is our prediction, starting the day we made it. Grey is a slower route to the same place — the same destination, taking longer. Black is the actual price, so you can see how we are doing.
Post-Report Due Diligence NOTES
Evidence for a closer look, not a verdict — no score or designation on this page has been changed by it. Items marked material are ones where a conclusion above moves to the other side of the price.
adjusted_earnings
flips up 25%
cost_of_capital
flips down 25%
shares
flips down 25%