Microchip Technology produces semiconductors used in a wide variety of embedded control applications. Products include 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers; a broad range of linear, mixed-signal, power management, thermal management, radio frequency (RF), timing, safety, security, and wired and wireless connectivity devices; and memory devices including EEPROM, serial flash, parallel, and static random access memories (SRAM). Microchip has more than 2,800 microcontrollers in its product catalog, which are used in end products in the automotive, communications, computing, consumer, and industrial control markets.

With every earnings win reported on Wednesday, there seems to be an equal and opposite reaction in the form of an earnings disappointment. And with earnings the main source of investor optimism or caution today, it's little surprise that the major U.S. stock indices are flat. Over the course of the morning, the indices have played jump rope with their opening levels, landing on one side for a period of time only to land on the other side shortly thereafter. Still, after multiple days of gains, the financial press is viewing the lack of further share-price progress as worrisome, and it is not difficult to find the words 'stalled' and 'lost steam' used to label the stock market today. Geopolitics are not helping, as tension in the Middle East continues to roil that area and is the basis for domestic discontent as well, while U.S. relations with China remain strained after the U.S. revoked export licenses for Intel and Qualcomm to sell chips to China's Huawei, a maker of PCs and mobile phones. The Dow was up 0.2%, the S&P 500 fell 0.1% and the Nasdaq lost 0.3%. Crude oil is trading below $79 per barrel and gold is little changed at $2324 per ounce.

Microchip Technology became an independent company in 1989 when it was spun off from General Instrument. More than half of revenue comes from MCUs, which are used in a wide array of electronic devices from remote controls to garage door openers to power windows in autos. The company's strength lies in lower-end 8-bit MCUs that are suitable for a wider range of less technologically advanced devices, but the firm has expanded its presence in higher-end MCUs and analog chips as well.

The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles to a large degree - have moved overseas, where labor and materials costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy, even during the pandemic and the current period of high inflation, has expanded to record levels. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, creating new products (such as vaccines and AI) and services (such as Zoom calls) and moving into new markets, the domestic economy would not be growing, and capital would not be flooding into the country. The current high level of the U.S. dollar relative to currencies around the world attests to the confidence that global investors have in the durable and innovative U.S. economy.