Bank of America Merrill Lynch Maintains Buy on Hewlett-Packard

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is out with its report today on Hewlett-Packard HPQ, maintaining Buy. In a note to clients, Bank of America Merrill Lynch writes, "We view HP as a large cap, defensive investment, owing to a high portion of recurring sales, significant cost cutting levers, strong balance sheet, top-notch management, and potential share gains. The EDS acquisition should provide revenue and cost synergy opportunities, outside of those opportunities within core-HP. Longer term, we view HP as a consolidator of share in the IT hardware market, specifically in PCs, services, and software, while maintaining its dominant share in printing." Bank of America Merrill Lynch maintains a $44 PO on HPQ. At the time of posting, shares of HPQ were trading pre-market at $34.56, down 0.49% from Tuesday's close.