No, reporting a $9 billion quarterly loss is never a good thing. But AllThingsD is reporting that many analysts think HP (HPQ) is still well-positioned to compete in the near future, and argue that the quarter’s massive loss was unavoidable as the company needed to air out missteps made on former CEO Leo Apotheker’s watch. Noted analysts Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets and Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee, for example, both thought that HP would outperform expectations in the coming quarters now that the company had already weathered the worst in terms of both layoffs and the multibillion dollar write-down charges it has incurred from its 2008 Electronic Data Systems acquisition. “This raise is surprising given the consensus negative view and expectations of a potential miss,” wrote Wu. “We view restructuring as a positive as the company is taking steps to clean up its balance sheet and reignite growth.”
