2 Good-News Stocks on a Frightful Friday

Halloween is still six weeks away, but that didn't stock the stock market from giving investors a big scare this week. Further weakness on Friday sent the major market indexes to steep declines from where they were this time last week, including a 4% fall for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.04%), a nearly 5% drop for the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.28%), and a 5.5% hit to the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC -0.53%). Daily moves were less extreme, but all three indexes still lost further ground.

Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

Given the downbeat mood on Wall Street, it's forgivable if you didn't notice that some companies announced good news. Investors in Texas Instruments (TXN -1.10%) and Pfizer (PFE -0.39%) can't say that they saw big moves on Friday, but the fact that they avoided losses was noteworthy in and of itself. Here's why these two stocks were among the better performers in the stock market on Friday and whether you should keep an eye on them going forward.

Texas Instruments shareholders get some capital back

Texas Instruments saw its stock rise about 1% on Friday. The move came in the aftermath of an announcement that the technology company made shortly after the regular trading session ended on Thursday.

Texas Instruments made two moves to reward shareholders. First, it decided to  boost its quarterly dividend by 8%. Starting with the November dividend payment, shareholders can expect to receive $1.24 per share, up from $1.15 per share the previous quarter. With the move, TI boosted its dividend yield back above the 3% mark.

At the same time, Texas Instruments also said it would boost the size of its authorization for the company to repurchase its stock. In addition to $8.2 billion in remaining previous authorizations as of the end of June 2022, TI created a new $15 billion stock repurchase authorization. That works out to roughly 10% of the company's $151 billion market capitalization, a sizable commitment to buybacks.

The move is just the latest in a long series of strategic steps Texas Instruments has taken for the benefit of its investors. The dividend hike was the 19th straight year in which TI had boosted its payouts. Moreover, in large part because of stock repurchases, the number of shares of TI stock outstanding has fallen by nearly half in the past 18 years.

Texas Instruments has done an extraordinary job of limiting its losses during the bear market, and its capital allocation strategy is a big part of the reason. Shareholders are pleased with the steps TI is taking to protect their interests, and everything its management team is doing seems to be working to keep the stock price from falling too hard.

More vaccines ahead for Pfizer

Shares of Pfizer barely budged on Friday, rising just 0.2%. However, the blue chip dividend stock and pharmaceutical giant got good news on a couple of fronts.

In Europe, Pfizer received a favorable recommendation for its omicron BA.4 and BA.5 COVID-19 vaccine booster shot regimen from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, which works  under the European Medicines Agency. Pfizer is attempting to move from conditional authorization to "full" authorization, and it expects a final decision from the European Commission in the near future. CHMP also recommended that Pfizer's Comirnaty booster get approval for use in children aged 5 to 11 in Europe.

The news comes just a day after Pfizer released positive top-line data from its phase 3 trial of its pentavalent meningococcal vaccine candidate. The trial showed that the candidate vaccine had an acceptable safety profile and demonstrated non-inferiority to existing licensed vaccines. Based on the trial, Pfizer hopes to apply for approval, with the hope of providing the broadest coverage and simplest schedule of any meningococcal vaccine.

Investors hope that more good news will break Pfizer stock out of a long slump and finally produce better results. It could take time, though, before today's favorable news turns into more revenue and profits for the drug giant.