Winners and Losers Among Chipmaker Short Sellers

We have tracked the key short interest changes as of April 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. (NASDAQ: INTC) short interest fell 1% to 233.21 million shares. About 4.7% of Intel's float is now short.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest fall by 6% to 96.06 million shares, or 15.9% of the company's total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest rose by 3.4% to 14.29 million shares, which represents 0.8% of the company's float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 5.9% rise in short interest to 3.46 million shares, which represents about 0.7% of the firm's float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a decline of 22.4%% in short interest, to 66.32 million shares, or about 6.5% of Micron's float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest fall by 16.7% to 7.8 million shares, or 3.2% of the company's float.

Short interest in Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) rose by 1.5% to 7.46 million shares. That is 1.5% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 2.4% increase in short interest, to 5.6 million shares, or about 1.4% of Marvell's float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest rose by 1.8% to 26.52 million shares, about 4.5% of the company's float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest decline by 5.9% to 26.5 million shares, or 2.4% of the float.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) short interest rose by 1.8% to 18.95 million shares, which is about 1.6% of the company's float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a drop of 3.8% in short interest to 9.34 million shares.

Shorts in Texas Instruments got squeezed by the company's better-than-expected quarterly earnings report and the faint-hearted dropped their positions and likely went looking for a better play.

During the prior two-week period, short sellers added more than 15% to their positions in SanDisk. In the most recent report, more than 16% dropped their short in their short position in the stock. Their timing looks good; SanDisk hit a two-month bottom on May 1 and has been on the rise ever since.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Semiconductor, Semiconductors, Short Interest, Technology, Technology Companies Tagged: AMAT, AMD, ARMH, BRCM, INTC, MRVL, MU, NVDA, QCOM, SMH, SNDK, TXN