Updating WELLS FARGO & CO. and TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC.

Article Excerpt

WELLS FARGO & CO. $24 (New York symbol WFC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 4.7 billion; Market cap: $112.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; WSSF Rating: Average) earned a record $3.2 billion in the second quarter of 2009. That’s up 80.9% from $1.8 billion a year earlier. Last January’s purchase of rival banking firm Wachovia Corp. was the main reason for the gain. Wells Fargo issued shares to help pay for Wachovia. It also sold shares to the public in May so it could better absorb higher loan losses during the recession. These moves increased the number of shares outstanding by 41%, so per-share earnings rose just 7.5% in the quarter, to $0.57 from $0.53. Revenue jumped 96.4%, to $22.5 billion from $11.5 billion. Wachovia accounted for 39% of Wells Fargo’s second-quarter revenue. The recession continues to hurt the quality of the company’s loan portfolio. It raised its loan-loss provisions by 68.9% in the latest quarter, to $5.1 billion from…