Why HP's CEO Choice Doesn't Matter (HPQ)

Reuters quantitative analyst, Mike Tarsala, just issued a video, which can be seen here, where he outlines the bull case for Hewlett Packard HPQ. Mr. Tarsala makes the case that HPQ's stock could care less who the new CEO turns out to be, he cites five key points: 1) The stock has fallen about 18% since CEO Mark Hurd left 2) As a result, H-P has completely missed the roughly 10% tech rally in September 3) The stock now trades at 8 times forward earnings, vs. 9 for Dell and 11 for IBM 4) The stock would be up 20% if it can simply get back to the mean PE of its two largest peers 5) Stocks trading at a similar intrinsic value multiples rose 14% in a 3-month period, based on a 10-year backtest Tarsala contends that, based on those facts, HPQ will rally on the upcoming CEO announcement (perhaps next week) and outperform the rest of tech in Q4. His price target is $45.50.