Shares in Hewlett-Packard dropped as much as 12 per cent in early trading yesterday following the company’s decision to slash its revenue forecast for its current fiscal year by $2 billion (€1.45 billion) late on Tuesday.

Far from being encouraged by signs of short-term improvements in profit margins, Wall Street focused on a more troubling prospect – that the group had cut too deeply into costs in the past, that this was starting to hamper revenue growth and that efforts to rebuild competitiveness would dent future profits. The sell-off came the day after HP reported revenue for the first complete quarter in which Léo Apotheker was at the helm had fallen short of its own forecast.