Short Interest: Macro Weakness Hits Chipmakers (INTC, AMD, QCOM, ARMH, MU, SNDK, BRCM, MRVL, NVDA, TXN, AMAT, SMH)

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 2.4% to 182.5 million shares. About 3.7% of Intel’s float is now short.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest rise 0.3% to 142.58 million shares, 23.8% of the company’s total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest fell 20.1% to 18.6 million shares, which represents just 1.1% of the company’s float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 9.8% rise in short interest to 8.06 million shares, which represents about 1.8% of the firm’s float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a rise of 4.2% in short interest, to 60.47 million shares, about 6% of Micron’s float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest rise by 2% to 10.1 million shares, or 4.2% of the company’s float.

Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) saw short interest fall by 3.4% to 6.25 million shares, or 1.2% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 29.8% rise in short interest, to 7.52 million shares, about 1.7% of Marvell’s float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest fell by 5.9%, to 14 million shares or about 2.4% of the company’s float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest rise by 32% to 23.26 million shares or 2.1% of the company’s float.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) saw short interest rising 9.7% to 20.07 million shares or about 1.6% of the company’s float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a rise of 5.8% in short interest to 6.2 million shares.

Chip stocks have been hard-hit by weak forecasts for PC shipments. The big losers in the first two weeks of October were Marvell and Texas Instruments. Marvell’s hard drive controller chips are threatened by the expected softness in the market for PCs and hard drives, while TI’s wide range of chips for all kinds of applications is threatened by the overall slowdown in the global economy.

AMD still leads the pack with nearly 24% of its shares held short. The company’s weaknesses are well known and it continues to struggle. The growth in short interest in AMD was quite low in this period though, compared with the previous two weeks when short interest rose more than 17%.

Paul Ausick