Chip stocks up strongly as markets rally, TI trounces estimates

• The Philadelphia Semi Index (SOXX +3%) has risen above $90 for the first time since July on a day the Nasdaq is up 1.5%. Helping out: Texas Instruments (TXN +10.4%) soundly beat Q3 estimates, reported positive growth for its analog and embedded processing (DSP/microcontroller) units in spite of a customer inventory correction, and (with the help of iPhone content gains) provided mostly above-consensus Q4 guidance.
• Meanwhile, Cypress Semi (up 4.1%) is rallying in spite of posting mixed Q3 results and issuing light Q4 guidance. A new $450M buyback is helping.
• TI/Cypress microcontroller peers NXP (NXPI +4.2%), Freescale (FSL +3.5%), STMicroelectronics (STM +2.5%), and Microchip (MCHP +2.9%) are among the gainers. As are TI analog/mixed-signal peers ON Semi (ON +5%), Intersil (ISIL +3.2%), IDT (IDTI +3.6%), Monolithic (MPWR +3.3%), and Silicon Labs (SLAB +2.6%).
• Other notable gainers include InvenSense (INVN +2.6%), Nvidia (NVDA +3.5%), Cavium (CAVM +4.4%), Knowles (KN +3.6%), and Lattice Semi (LSCC +7%).
• On its earnings call (transcript), TI mentioned automotive chip demand (boosted by growing chip content in various systems) was strong. Industrial sales were roughly flat (better than expected), and personal electronics benefited from "demand from one customer" (likely Apple). Wireless infrastructure fell 30% Y/Y (Chinese weakness), but rose Q/Q.
• Chip stocks also outperformed yesterday after Western Digital announced it's buying SanDisk, Lam Research announced it's buying KLA-Tencor, and CPU core giant ARM (ARMH +2.7%) beat Q3 revenue estimates (EPS slightly missed) with the help of a 20% Y/Y increase in ARM chip shipments to 3.6B, and stated it expects 2015 revenue to be in-line with market expectations.
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