Short Interest in shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD US), a semiconductor manufacturer, reached an all-time high this week. As of today, bearish bets have increased to an extraordinary 159 million shares. S3 Partners real-time short interest analytics calculates that the real time dollars at risk, on the short side, is $2.02 billion. This is an increase of 83% in shares and 105% of dollars at risk, just since the beginning of the 2017.
As AMD hits new record highs in short interest, S3 estimates that only 18% of the float is being utilized. Should investors want to boost their bets, there is still plenty of stock to borrow. Advanced Micro stock trades at or near general collateral levels, the cheapest fee or easiest to borrow stock. However, short sellers during this 9 month period, have lost $110.3 million (a -6.60% return).
AMD short investors are not isolated when compared to other short sellers in direct competitors. Intel (INTC US) has seen the number of shares sold short increase to 121 million and dollars at risk rise to $4.72 billion. Intel short investors have lost $227 million since January (a -6.61% return). NVIDIA has seen the number of shares short, decrease from 54.9 million to 17 million and dollars at risk come down from $5.9 billion to $3.1 billion. Bearish investors against NVIDIA have lost a staggering $1.77 billion during that same period (a -57.6% return).
Volatility in the stock price of AMD has been elevated, even as the S&P 500 has hit new highs almost daily. What is most notable though, is one of AMD’s largest shareholders selling their holdings when the stock trades between $13 and $14. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment, sold 85 million of their shares since March, bringing their position down to just under 57 million shares (August 4th filing).
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Contact: Brett.Weiss@S3Partners.net
Director, S3 Partners
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The information herein (some of which has been obtained from third party sources without verification) is believed by S3 Partners, LLC (“S3 Partners”) to be reliable and accurate. Neither S3 Partners nor any of its affiliates makes any representation as to the accuracy or completeness of the information herein or accepts liability arising from its use. Prior to making any decisions based on the information herein, you should determine, without reliance upon S3 Partners, the economic risks and merits, as well as the legal, tax, accounting and investment consequences, of such decisions.
