When Texas Instruments
But then analyst reports poured in Friday morning, and the stock bounced back in no time at all. That's still a sorry performance on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average
Street analysts didn't see any reason to panic. The bulls are still bullish, though the rebound may happen later than they had expected. The bears got some fuel for their fires. And firms with a neutral view weren't swayed either way.
So what looked like drastically bad news at first turned out to be a non-event for shareholders.
Me, I'm siding with the TI bulls. This is a top-notch business with a firm tentacle stretching into the red-hot smartphone and tablet markets. Times are slow now, but it's bad for the entire sector and beyond. When -- not if -- the global economy regains its footing and consumers start buying electronics again, TI is sure to capitalize.
In fact, the current slowdown may even make that rebound even stronger. TI spokesman Ron Slaymaker explained that its customers are eviscerating stockpiles of chips at the moment. In Slaymaker's words, "We believe we're undershipping demand."
That can only last for so long, and Slaymaker notes that customers tend to do poorly at estimating when the snapback might begin. So Sony, Motorola Mobility
Texas Instruments runs its own factories with just a helping of third-party manufacturing. That's unlike Qualcomm
Losing tablet and smartphone orders to inventory problems would be a terrible idea at this early stage. Mobile computing is a trillion-dollar industry in the making. See how TI fits into this mind-boggling opportunity by grabbing a free report on the mobile market. Just click here to get your copy -- it's totally free.