Texas Instruments
Revenues increased an astounding 34% over last year's first quarter, while earnings per diluted share tripled. Trend-wise, things are also looking good for the Dallas-based chip maker. Revenue was up 6% over fourth-quarter 2003, and, while earnings were down 28% from that period, the drop was caused by a confluence of three factors: The fourth quarter's earnings were boosted by profits from a sale of Micron Technologies
As a result, Texas Instruments is raising its earnings projections for the second quarter to $0.23 to $0.26 per share from March's prediction of $0.19 to $0.22.
Compare that with Intel's
One other thing: You may have noticed that when Intel's report came out, apparently missing analysts' earnings target by a penny (though that "miss" is debatable), Texas Instruments' shares fell in tandem with Intel's. Now, I don't mean to rant here, but that kind of synchronicity really gets my goat. Just because two companies, X and Y, are in the same business, and Company X has a bad quarter (or is perceived to have had a bad quarter), that does not mean that Company Y is going to have a bad quarter, too.
Companies in the same field of business are generally competitors, after all. Logically, if one of them "wins," the other one is supposed to lose. So why do investors so often assume that, hey, Merrill Lynch
Take the cell-phone makers, for example. Just because Ericsson
That's why the good people at the stock exchanges give different companies different ticker symbols.
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Fool contributor Rich Smith owns no shares in any company mentioned in this article.