Buybacks, Dividends Lift This Chipmaker

Article Excerpt

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC. $36 (New York symbol TXN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $51.8 billion; WSSF Rating: Average) is the world’s leading maker of chips for cellphones and other portable devices. Texas Instruments continues to aggressively buy back shares. (Buybacks reduce the number of shares outstanding, which raises per-share earnings.) It just increased its current repurchase authorization by $5 billion, to $8.8 billion (17% of its market cap). The company is doing a good job holding down its costs, which is helping it cope with cyclical chip demand. It also recently increased its dividend for the second time in 2007. The new annual rate of $0.40 a share, up 25% from the old rate of $0.32, gives the stock a current yield of 1.1%. Texas Instruments is a buy. buy…