Shorts Piling Back into Some Mobile Chipmakers (INTC, AMD, QCOM, ARMH, MU, SNDK, BRCM, MRVL, NVDA, TXN, AMAT, SMH)

We also chose to look at how the Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) has held up.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) short interest rose 2.1% to 238.76 million shares. About 4.8% of Intel’s float is now short.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) saw short interest fall by 3.3% to 92.44 million shares, or 15.3% of the company’s total float.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) short interest declined by 8.2% to 13.66 million shares, which represents 0.8% of the company’s float.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) saw a 15.6% rise in short interest to 3.55 million shares, which represents about 0.8% of the firm’s float.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) showed a drop of 7% in short interest, to 77.7 million shares, or about 7.7% of Micron’s float.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) saw short interest rise by 2.7% to 8.09 million shares, or 3.4% of the company’s float.

Short interest in Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) fell by 14.5% to 6.93 million shares. That is 1.3% of the total float.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) posted a 7.7% drop in short interest, to 5.26 million shares, or about 1.2% of Marvell’s float.

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) short interest rose by 20.6% to 26.06 million shares, about 4.4% of the company’s float.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) saw short interest drop by 14.7% to 22.86 million shares, or 2.1% of the float.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) short interest dropped by 4.2% to 15.05 million shares, which is about 1.3% of the company’s float.

The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSEMKT: SMH) showed a rise of 22% in short interest to 9.08 million shares.

The short bets in this two-week period seem to favor Nvidia and ARM, while appearing to lose interest in Texas Instruments and Broadcom. Qualcomm, the leader in mobile device chips, has strengthened its position in the sector and the short sellers are betting against these competitors. The recent reports that AMD will provide chips for the new Xbox should have an impact on the next short interest report.