Analog Devices Demands Your Attention

After a very impressive second-quarter report, Analog's shares set multi-year highs with a 50% one-year return including dividends. That's better than the returns from chief rival Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) and approaching the same market-stomping ballpark as Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) . The second quarter was both helped and hampered by the disaster in Japan: supply lines and customers suffered but nervous clients responded by stockpiling chips. All told, the puts and takes added up to about $20 million of additional sales, which was insignificant in the context of $791 million of total revenue.... Read more