Short Sellers Focus on Two Chip Stocks

October 25, 2013 by Paul Ausick

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Source: Thinkstock
We have tracked the key short interest changes as of October 15 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. (NASDAQ: INTC) short interest rose 1.5% to 255.3 million shares. About 5.1% of Intel’s float is now short.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest rise by 6.2% to 115.46 million shares, or 18.9% of the company’s total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest fell 14.7% to 22.56 million shares, which represents 1.3% of the company’s float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 7.3% rise in short interest to 8.68 million shares, which represents about 1.9% of the firm’s float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a rise of 18.1% in short interest to 109.03 million shares, or about 10.6% of Micron’s float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest fall by 4.5% to 19.45 million shares, or 8.1% of the company’s float.

Short interest in Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) was unchanged at 13.7 million shares. That is 2.6% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 20% decrease in short interest, to 10.73 million shares, or about 2.7% of Marvell’s float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest fell by 3% to 40.66 million shares, about 7.4% of the company’s float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest rise 2.7% to 23.09 million shares, or 2.1% of the float.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) short interest rose 36.3% to 28.9 million shares, which is about 2.4% of the company’s float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a rise of 6.7% in short interest to 9.89 million shares.

Short interest continues to rise in Micron Technologies. Rising DRAM prices have sent the company’s stock to 11-year highs, and short sellers will continue to pile on, believing the share price will fall back to earth in the near future. Shares of Applied Materials shot up when the company announced its merger with Tokyo Electron. As is the case with Micron, short sellers do not see the elevated price remaining at current levels for long.

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