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Texas Instruments recently caught my eye.

And while I decided to dig into its story, what happened isn’t unique to this company.

Texas Instruments is, in fact, a poster child for #financialization.

And there’s nothing illegal or incompetent about it.

I’m going to focus on a five-year stretch of the company’s financials,
from 2014 through 2018.

This is where the truly meteoric stock-price appreciation took place over the past 10 years,
even with the stock market’s swoon in the fourth quarter of 2018,
and comparing full-year financials makes for a more apples-to-apples comparison.

But before I get into the numbers, let me tell you the story.

The Texas Instruments story is free cash flow and earnings growth that management “returns to shareholders”.

Earnings per share on a fully diluted weighted basis has more than doubled from 2014 through 2018,
net income available to shareholders on a GAAP basis has doubled,
and cash from operations has almost doubled.

What makes this a story of financialization is the why of the very real free cash flows and earnings growth and the how of the allocation of those cash flows and earnings.

The why is pretty simple. Management has cut its cost structure to the everlovin’ bone
#Share #buybacks