Morning Market Roundup: HP's Multibillion-Dollar Hit, UBS Rogue Trader Found Guilty, Greece's Future

Here’s what’s important in the business world this morning:

HP: Hewlett-Packard Co. said that a British company it bought for $10 billion last year lied about its finances, resulting in a massive write-down of the value of the business.

HP is avoiding calling it a fraud, but said Tuesday that there were "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corporation PLC."

HP is taking an $8.8 billion charge in its latest quarter to align the accounting value of Autonomy with its real value. It said most of that charge was due to the fictional bookkeeping at Autonomy.

The revelation is another blow for HP, which is struggling to reinvent itself as PC sales shrink.

Greece: European Union officials will make a fresh try Tuesday to reach a political accord on desperately needed bailout loans for Greece -- an agreement that eluded them last week.

The discussion among the finance ministers from the 17 European Union countries that use the euro will center on a €31.5 billion ($40.2 billion) loan. But when previously frozen aid is considered along with further aid scheduled to be disbursed later this year, the total could reach €44 billion ($56.15 billion), said a spokesman for eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker.

The finance ministers had hoped to sign off on the payments last week. However, that meeting ended without agreement on how to solve Greece's financial crisis. That delayed the loan payment, pushing the country closer to bankruptcy and a possible exit from the euro.

Last week's meeting revealed disagreement on whether Greece should be given a two-year extension to 2022 to reach the 120 percent target. The IMF is insisting that Greece sticks to the original deadline.

Rogue Trader: A rogue trader who lost $2.2 billion in bad deals at Swiss bank UBS was convicted of two counts of fraud on Tuesday.

Ghanaian-born Kweku Adoboli, 32, exceeded his trading limits and failed to hedge trades, allegedly faking records to cover his tracks at the bank's London office. At one point, Adoboli risked running losses of up to $12 billion.

The trading loss at UBS was one of the largest in U.K. banking history. U.S.-based JPMorgan Chase lost at least $5.8 billion through bad trades at its London office, the bank's CEO Jamie Dimon said in July.

The jury found Adoboli innocent of four other false accounting charges. Adoboli admitted the losses, but said he was pressured by staff to take risks.

He also testified last month that he had been trying to help UBS survive after it amassed losses of $52 billion during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.

"There were times we thought there was no way the organization would survive," said Adoboli, who joined UBS as a trainee in 2003 and rose quickly to become a senior trader. "I grew up with UBS. I felt very loyal to UBS."

Stocks: Concerns about Europe's debt crisis, including a downgrade of France's credit rating, weighed on world stock markets Tuesday.

Moody's Investors Service stripped France of its prized AAA rating on Monday, citing its limited prospects for growth and exposure to the crisis that has forced several countries into bailouts.

In Tuesday afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent to 5,721.40, while France's CAC dropped the same rate to 3,430.22. Only Germany's DAX found its footing, rising 02 percent to 7,137.67.

The euro was flat at $1.2816.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.