We have tracked the key short interest changes as of October 31 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 10% to 200.75 million shares. About 4% of Intel’s float is now short. The world’s largest chipmaker has not gotten any really good news lately.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest rise 3.3% to 147.31 million shares, or 24.6% of the company’s total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest rose 2.7% to 19.1 million shares, which represents just 1.1% of the company’s float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 1.7% rise in short interest to 8.2 million shares, which represents about 1.8% of the firm’s float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a rise of 1% in short interest, to 61.1 million shares, about 6.1% of Micron’s float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest fall by 19.8% to 8.1 million shares, or 3.4% of the company’s float.

Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) saw short interest rise by 5.7% to 6.6 million shares, or 1.3% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 0.9% rise in short interest, to 7.59 million shares, about 1.7% of Marvell’s float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest fell by 3.4%, to 13.5 million shares or about 2.3% of the company’s float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest fall by 6.6% to 21.72 million shares, or 1.9% of the company’s float. This is a big turnaround from a rise of 32% in the first two weeks of October.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) saw short interest falling 13.5% to 17.36 million shares or about 1.4% of the company’s float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a drop of 38.2% in short interest to 3.84 million shares. Short interest in the ETF fell by the largest amount over the two-week period.

Short interest in chipmakers’ stocks was down overall for the past couple of weeks. Particularly notable were the turnarounds in TI stock and the Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF. While expectations for Intel have fallen, some chip stocks, Qualcomm and ARM Holdings in particular, have done well. Confidence in AMD’s ability to turn the ship around continues to falter.

Paul Ausick

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