2 Solid Reports Give Hope to Semiconductor Investors

Two semiconductor giants kicked off the sector's earnings season with some good news in the COVID-19 era. Both Texas Instruments (NASDAQ: TXN) and STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) presented solid first-quarter reports, and each management team also provided some soothing analysis of current market conditions in the semiconductor industry.

Pan-European microchip veteran ST saw first-quarter net revenues land at $2.23 billion, 7.5% above the year-ago reading. Earnings rose from $0.20 to $0.21 per share. The analyst consensus pointed to earnings near $0.23 per share on sales in the neighborhood of $2.31 billion. While these results fell below the current Street view, they weren't the complete meltdown that many investors had expected.

Texas Instruments' revenues fell 7% year over year to $3.33 billion and earnings dropped from $1.26 to $1.24 per share. Here, your average analyst would have settled for earnings of roughly $1.00 per share on top-line sales near $3.17 billion. That's a clear-cut surprise across the board.

Source Fool.com