Back in 2024, on May 14, Mad Money’s Jim Cramer discussed the U.S. government doubling tariffs on so-called “legacy semiconductors” — older-generation chips where the U.S. had become reliant on foreign supply. He pointed to Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) as the clearest American winner from that policy at the time, saying:
“The government’s doubling the tariff on legacy semiconductors from 25% to 50%. Legacy can be a slippery term. When COVID raged, we knew that our country couldn’t produce enough of the older, larger form factor chips — not the state-of-the-art Nvidia kind of chips — making us hostage to foreign suppliers. And then those supply chains got busted. So this is part of a larger strategy to bring semiconductor manufacturing back home. Now here’s one where the market actually got it right — Texas Instruments, the biggest legacy chipmaker, soared. Its stock jumped three bucks to a new 52-week high today. Too late to buy? I think so.”
Cramer’s timing was appropriate, as the stock fell 1.98% since his “too late to buy” warning.
A robotic arm in the process of assembling a complex circuit board – showing the industrial scale the company operates at.
Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) is a leading designer and producer of analog and embedded semiconductor chips used across industrial and automotive applications. Talking about the company again in April, Cramer said the following:
”Texas is so non-promotional, it was like, look we’ve had the customers don’t have enough inventory so things are better.”
He also highlighted his optimism earlier this year in January, saying:
“Right. People keep wanting Texas Instruments to be something other than it is. It’s an industrial company. Very good. 20% of business is in China by the way. Love the China. […] Texas Instruments is an industrial company. And it trades like one. And these analysts keep thinking it’s going to trade like the Texas Instruments of 1982, 84. They ought to get the program. I think that Texas Instruments is very forthcoming. They used to be less forthcoming. But they’re basically saying, look, our markets aren’t that good. And they can’t outrun their own markets. […]
I love the fact that they’re straight forward. That they’re not doing well in embedded, they’re saying, listen, we’re missing, we’re missing, we’re missing. People are missing. Enough already.”
While we acknowledge the potential of TXN to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TXN and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None.
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