Texas Instruments Down After In-Line Q4

Texas Instruments TXN is down more than one percent in after hours trading after the company announced its fourth quarter results. The company reported a Q4 EPS of $0.46, which was inline with Wall Street's estimates. Earnings per share were up 28 percent from the year-ago period. Revenue came in at $3.03 billion, which was slightly higher than the Wall Street estimate of $2.99 billion. Sales were up two percent year-over-year. "Our fourth quarter capped a year in which each quarter's performance increasingly reflected the impact of structural changes we've made to focus TI on Analog and Embedded Processing, where the diversity and longevity of our positions are assets," Rich Templeton, chairman, president and CEO of Texas Instruments, said in a company release. "The combined revenue from Analog and Embedded Processing grew 12 percent over last year's fourth quarter and comprised 82 percent of total revenue. Individually, Analog was up 12 percent and Embedded Processing was up 11 percent from a year ago." Templeton added that earnings "benefited from revenue that was in the upper half of our guidance range and excellent fall through to gross profit." "Gross margin of 54.2 percent remained near its record high, reflecting the quality of our Analog and Embedded Processing portfolio and the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy," he continued. Year-to-date, Texas Instruments has had some ups and downs. Thus far, its shares are up less than one percent. The company has performed much better over the last 12 months, rising more than 29 percent. Texas Instruments expects to report a Q1 EPS between $0.36 and $0.44 versus the Street estimate of $0.44. TI also projected that sales will fall within the $2.83 billion to $3.07 billion range versus the Street estimate of $2.96 billion. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.