Brocade to post late Monday, long after HP
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. has scheduled its earnings announcement three hours after the market closes Monday, long after Hewlett-Packard Co. posts its quarterly results.
The San Jose-based networking equipment company (NASDAQ:BRCD) is expected by analysts to report a drop in fourth quarter earnings per share to 13 cents, excluding items, compared to 20 cents a share last year. Revenue is expected to rise to $521.09 million, compared to 398.50 million a year ago.
Palo Alto-based HP (NASDAQ:HPQ) is expected to post $1.13 a share in earnings, an increase from $1.01 cent last year despite an anticipated 10 percent revenue drop to $30.36 billion.
JMP Securities analyst Douglas Ireland told Reuters that Brocade may be trying to avoid competing with HP for analyst attention in a conference call Monday afternoon payday loan. Brocade has scheduled its conference call for Tuesday morning.
"Everyone who would be listening to the Brocade call will be listening to the HP call instead," Ireland told Reuters. "Nobody's going to pay attention to Brocade and ignore HP."
Brocade's stock took a double-digit percentage hit this month after HP announced on Nov. 11 that it would buy 3Com Corp. for $2.7 billion. The stock closed Friday at $8.01, well off its 52-week high of $9.84 in October.
That's because it's believed that the HP-3Com deal took a major potential buyer of Brocade away and will hurt it competitively.
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