Mobile Chip Makers Dodge Shorts (INTC, AMD, QCOM, ARMH, MU, SNDK, BRCM, MRVL, NVDA, TXN, AMAT, SMH)

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) short interest fell 0.9% to 198.86 million shares. About 4% of Intel’s float is now short.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest rise 3.5% to 152.47 million shares, or 25.5% of the company’s total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest rose 6% to 20.25 million shares, which represents 1.2% of the company’s float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 19% drop in short interest to 6.64 million shares, which represents about 1.4% of the firm’s float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a decline of 8.4% in short interest, to 55.93 million shares, about 5.6% of Micron’s float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest rise by 3.7% to 8.39 million shares, or 3.5% of the company’s float.

Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) saw short interest fall by 2.5% to 6.44 million shares, or 1.3% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 5.2% drop in short interest, to 7.2 million shares, about 1.6% of Marvell’s float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest rise by 1.7%, to 13.73 million shares, or about 2.3% of the company’s float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest rise by 23.4% to 26.81 million shares or 2.4% of the company’s float. In the prior two-week period, short interest in TI fell by 6.6%. TI’s announcement that it plans to leave the mobile processor business brought the shorts out in force.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) saw short interest rising 5.3% to 18.28 million shares or about 1.5% of the company’s float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a rise of 2% in short interest to 3.91 million shares.

Short interest in chipmakers’ stocks was mixed overall for the past couple of weeks. Particularly notable was the turnaround in TI stock, which almost certainly is due to its decision to pull out of the mobile chip business. And the drops in short interest in companies like Broadcom, Nvidia and ARM follow the strong results from the mobile chipmakers.

Paul Ausick