This Week’s Tech Earnings Winners and Losers: RF Micro, Triquint, Linear Tech and More (RFMD, TQNT, LLTC, NETL, SANM, QLGC, MMI, MXIM, NOK, RIMM, AAPL, INTC, AMD)

Earnings season is getting underway in the tech sector. What should investors expect from these reports? What are the key storylines to follow and are these stocks likely to trade higher or lower in the wake of their results?

In NextInning.com’s earnings previews, available free to trial subscribers, key storylines are evaluated, analyst expectations are audited, and in depth valuation analyses are provided to develop fair value ranges for dozens of stocks. Next Inning’s model portfolio has returned 311% since 2002, nearly seven times the return of the S&P 500.

In its latest earnings preview, Next Inning looks at several popular stocks, including RF Micro Devices (RFMD), Triquint Semiconductor (TQNT), Linear Technology (LLTC), NetLogic Microsystems (NETL), Sanmina-SCI (SANM), QLogic (QLGC), Motorola Mobility (MMI), and Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM).

Here is just a tiny sample of what Editor Paul McWilliams wrote about RF Micro:

“I think the best way to view RF Micro at this juncture is as a company that is finally completing a long transitional phase. At the beginning of this phase, RF Micro was heavily orientated towards 2G standards, had monstrous concentration with Nokia (NOK), and with transceiver products. As I predicted would be the case 18-months before the decision was announced by RF Micro, it decided to abandon its transceiver strategy. The short story here is the transceiver function was gobbled up by silicon chips marching to the beat of Moore’s Law, and that meant it was no longer viable for RF Micro to play in the market. These chips made up the bulk of its business at Nokia, so the two wound down in near unison.

“In the middle of RF Micro’s transition it saw a very nice boost from white-box handset makers who leveraged chipsets from Taiwanese-based MediaTek to develop a high volume, but fairly fragmented handset business in manufacturing plants across China. This market has since wound down considerably. In this last phase, RF Micro has leveraged the 3G technology it has developed over the last few years to build what appears to be a solid market across a wider cross-section of tier one and tier two handset manufacturers, and most recently won some very nice designs at both Research in Motion (RIMM) and Samsung.”

Just a few of the correct calls Next Inning has already made this earnings season include:

Tags: AAPL, AMD, INTC, LLTC, MMI, MXIM, NETL, NOK, QLGC, RFMD, RIMM, SANM, TQNT