Investors Could Be Missing Key From Texas Instruments as Shares Fall

Let’s parse some of Tuesday night's and Wednesday morning’s earnings reports and what we find after conducting a close examination.

The cut to the quick is that those learnings support our positions in United Rentals (URI) , Vulcan Materials (VMC) , Nvidia (NVDA) , Marvell (MRVL) and Waste Management (WM) .

Construction Partners Lifts Revenue Outlook

On Tuesday night, Construction Partners (ROAD) nudged its 2025 fiscal year revenue guidance to $2.80 billion to $2.82 billion from $2.77 billion to $2.83 billion, and issued upside guidance for the current fiscal 2026 year of $3.4 billion to $3.5 billion. While the revised 2025 revenue range is modestly above the $2.80 billion forecast, Construction’s 2026 guidance is nicely above the $3.29 billion consensus.

Fueling the positive pre-announcement is the company’s project backlog, which is expected to be about $3.0 billion exiting September 2025, compared to $1.96 billion at the end of September 2024. Construction will hold its Construction Partners Analyst Day on Wednesday, and odds are that the event will bring more color on the company’s medium-term outlook and the end markets driving it.

We see Construction’s preliminary assessment as very supportive for our holdings in United Rentals ahead of its earnings report and conference call on Thursday, as well as our position in Vulcan Materials.

Reading Between the Texas Instruments Lines

Shares of chip company Texas Instruments (TXN) are falling on Wednesday after the company posted mixed September quarter results and issued weaker-than-expected guidance for the current quarter.

The analog chipmaker expects EPS of $1.13 to $1.39 versus the $1.39 consensus for the current quarter, with revenue between $4.22 billion and $4.58 billion compared to the $4.5 billion market forecast. What the market is reading into the results is that while the semiconductor market recovery is continuing, in aggregate, it is at a slightly slower pace compared to prior upturns, something TI attributes to broader macroeconomic uncertainty.

Getting into the nitty-gritty, we find TI’s industrial market increased about 25% year on year and was up low single digits sequentially following a strong result in the second quarter. The automotive market increased upper single digits year on year and around 10% sequentially, with growth across all regions.

Personal electronics grew low single digits year on year and grew upper single digits sequentially.

Communications equipment grew about 45% year on year and was up about 10% sequentially, which is a confirming signal of the expected rebound in Marvell’s carrier infrastructure and enterprise networking segments.

In the topic of data center, TI management shared that it sees a long-term growth opportunity for that market, and that year-to-date revenue from that market was growing more than 50%. Starting in 2025, TI will break out the data center as a market alongside the others mentioned above, and to us that speaks to the growth potential but also TI wanting to catch some exposure benefits as well.

Ahead of that recasting effort, TI management shared that the company’s data center business is running around a $1.5 billion run rate. Measured against that 50% YTD growth rate, it’s another positive data point for our AI and data center chip holdings.

Waste Connections

In our opening comments on Wednesday morning, we quickly touched on the consensus-topping earnings report from Waste Connections (WCN). The company posted September quarter EPS of $1.44 on $2.46 billion in revenue, both nicely ahead of the $1.38 and $2.45 billion consensus figures. The drivers behind that upside should be familiar to us, given our position in Waste Management — disciplined pricing, efficiency gains and tight cost management helped offset softer commodity prices.

While that bodes well for the legacy Waste Management business, what we learned on Tuesday from Quest Diagnostics (DGX) reaffirms Waste’s move into the medical waste segment. Quest’s organic requisition volume rose 3.9% during the September quarter, benefitting from strength in its largest service market, routine clinical testing and other services (51% of revenue). More medical testing means more medical waste, and we see that continuing as the domestic demographic composition skews older.

Coming Up: More Waste Connections, Apple-iPhone17-Qualcomm

We’ll have more from Waste Connections’ earnings call as well as the latest data points for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 17, including one that supports our Qualcomm (QCOM) position. Here’s a hint: Qualcomm’s modem is in the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro models.

More Pro Portfolio

At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long URI, VMC, NVDA, MRVL, WM, AAPL and QCOM.