Short Sellers Switch Allegiances on Chip Stocks

We have tracked the key short interest changes as of September 30 in the following semiconductor leaders: Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU), SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK), Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH), Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL), Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) and Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT). We also chose to look at how the Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) has held up.

Intel Corp.’s (NASDAQ: INTC) short interest rose 2.1% to 251.54 million shares. About 5.1% of Intel's float is now short.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest fall by 4.6% to 108.7 million shares, or 17.8% of the company's total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest rose 10.1% to 26.44 million shares, which represents 1.5% of the company's float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 7.5% drop in short interest to 8.09 million shares, which represents about 1.7% of the firm's float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a drop of 17.6% in short interest, to 92.33 million shares, or about 9% of Micron's float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest fall by 9.5% to 20.36 million shares, or 8.5% of the company's float.

Short interest in Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) rose 9% to 13.7 million shares. That is 2.6% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 13.9% increase in short interest to 13.42 million shares, or about 3.4% of Marvell's float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest rose by 4% to 41.9 million shares, about 7.6% of the company's float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest fall by 6% to 22.5 million shares, or 2.1% of the float.

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Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) short interest rose 34.7% to 21.2 million shares, which is about 1.8% of the company's float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a drop of 6.1% in short interest to 9.27 million shares.

Short interest in Micron fell off a cliff in the latter two weeks of the month. Reports that DRAM prices are rising and demand is improving have given the company a real boost. Applied Materials was the other big short play, mostly following its announced merger with Tokyo Electron. The stock jumped to a 52-week high after the announcement and the shorts loved the play.