HP's Stock Made A Suspicious Jump Right Before Earnings Came Out

About an hour before HP released its better-than-expected earnings, the stock started to climb, setting off a lot of grumblings on Twitter.

As CNBC reported:

Hewlett-Packard jumped more than 2 percent on heavy volume in the final hour of trading ahead of its earnings report. Traders cited short covering in the computer hardware giant amid hopes the company will surprise positively after the closing bell.

Some folks on Twitter wondered aloud about it.

Cheating wins on Wall St apparently. $HPQ twitter.com/TradeLeaps/sta…

— Tommy P. (@TradeLeaps) February 21, 2013

heavily shorted stock rallies in final minutes before earnings beat $HPQ = monkey business, or one buyer set off a ton of short covering ?

— tradefast (@tradefast) February 21, 2013

Seriously, when was the last time Hewlett-Packard spontaneously rallied into an earnings report? lol $HPQ

— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) February 21, 2013

— tradefast (@tradefast) February 21, 2013

Really odd spike in $HPQ shares in the final hour of trading. It's almost like some traders got a look Q1 report early.

— Arik Hesseldahl (@ahess247) February 21, 2013