Shares of Hewlett-Packard fell 7 per cent yesterday, adding to a slide of 5 per cent on Monday after the world's biggest information technology group agreed to pay $13.9bn for Electronic Data Systems, the IT services company.

The fall in HP's stock price wiped out several billion dollars in market capitalisation, suggesting that Wall Street was taking a sceptical view of Mark Hurd's biggest deal in three years as chief executive of the world's biggest IT group.