Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN) rallied 4% Tuesday in the wake of its fourth-quarter earnings report. The report itself wasn't exactly a thing of beauty, but was better than expected, and investors seemed to like the company's efforts to reduce costs in the face of continuing weak demand.

Investors' optimism carried over to the broader market, and the tech-laden Nasdaq gained more than 1%.

For the quarter, the world's third-largest chip maker said it earned 21 cents per share, excluding 13 cents per share of restructuring charges. Revenue declined to $2.49 billion from $3.56 billion a year ago, but both top-line and bottom-line numbers came in ahead of analysts' expectations, prompting Tuesday's rally.

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) is scheduled to discuss fourth-quarter and full-year 2008 results today in a conference call at 4:30 PM Eastern, hosted by Kevin March, senior vice president and chief financial officer, and Ron Slaymaker, vice president and head of Investor Relations. Catch the live webcast of the call on the company's website.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Texas Instruments to report that a profit of $0.12 per share, which is 77.7% lower than in the same period a year ago. Revenue for the quarter is expected to total $2.4 billion, down 33.3% from a year ago. These numbers are in line with guidance Texas Instruments offered in December. Texas Instruments matched earnings expectations in the third quarter and missed by a penny in the second quarter.

For the full year, analysts expect earnings of $1.48 per share and revenue of $12.4 billion, which compares to $1.83 per share on $13.8 billion in 2007.

Texas Instruments recently announced a quarterly dividend of $0.11 per share of common stock, the same as in the previous quarter. Analysts, on average, expect long-term EPS growth of 8.7% for Texas Instruments. The share price is about 38% lower it was than a year ago.

See BloggingStocks' Texas Instruments coverage for more information about the Dallas-based semiconductor maker.

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