Chip Stocks: Shorts Losing Interest in the Sector (INTC, AMD, QCOM, ARMH, MU, SNDK, BRCM, MRVL, NVDA, TXN, AMAT, SMH)

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) short interest rose 3.8% to 216.01 million shares. About 4.4% of Intel’s float is now short.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest drop by 0.8% to 85.74 million shares, or 14.2% of the company’s total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest fell 7.8% to 14 million shares, which represents 0.8% of the company’s float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 19.3% drop in short interest to 5.33 million shares, which represents about 1.2% of the firm’s float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a rise of 10.7% in short interest, to 73.23 million shares, or about 7.2% of Micron’s float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest rise by 5.8% to 7.09 million shares, or 2.9% of the company’s float.

Short interest in Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) increased 29.3% to 8.26 million shares. That is 1.6% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 12.1% drop in short interest, to 6.17 million shares, or about 1.4% of Marvell’s float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest fell by 13.3% to 16.53 million shares, about 2.8% of the company’s float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest retreat 1.8% to 26.36 million shares, or 2.4% of the float.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) short interest dropped by 19% to 17.15 million shares, which is about 1.4% of the company’s float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a rise of 13.7% in short interest to 6.32 million shares.

With just a couple of exceptions, short interest fell in chip stocks during the two-week period ending February 28. Good earnings from chip makers in the mobile business cooled off shorts. The bets against Intel and the Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF rose, likely as a hedge against betting the wrong way on ARMH and the others.