Long shareholders have been bidding up Micron Technology’s (MU) stock price since May of 2016 when its stock price dipped below $10/share but have gone into overdrive since early February, bidding the stock up almost 50% in just six weeks. Over the same six weeks, short sellers have faced the onslaught of yet another 17 year high, $61.15 on March 20th, and not bought back any shares and have seen their short exposure increase from $2.6 billion to $3.9 billion.
| Semiconductor
(in $ millions) |
Ticker | Short
Interest |
Monthly Change S.I. | YTD MTM
P/L |
YTD MTM
P/L% |
| Intel Corp | INTC | $4,791 | +$15 | -$502.4 | -10.42% |
| Micron Tech | MU | $3,913 | +$1,153 | -$1,263.2 | -44.04% |
| Microchip Tech | MCHP | $3,242 | +$848 | -$361.9 | -13.37% |
| Nvidia Corp | NVDA | $3,106 | -$1,071 | -$876.8 | -25.07% |
| Adv. Micro Devices | AMD | $2,105 | +$236 | -$184. | -9.16% |
| Texas Instruments | TXN | $1,635 | +$325 | -$73.1 | -4.25% |
| Marvell Tech | MRVL | $1,100 | +$149 | -$56.6 | -6.44% |
| Broadcom Ltd | AVGO | $1,047 | +$205 | +$52.4 | +5.31% |
| Qualcomm Corp | QCOM | $979 | -$290 | +$128.1 | +10.63% |
| Skyworks Solutions | SWKS | $901 | -$56 | -$115.5 | -3.20% |
| Worldwide Semi’s | $38,715 | +$2,674 |
Micron Tech will be reporting 2nd Quarter earnings results after the bell today and traders are expecting another outperforming quarter, with recent option trading predicting a post-results rally. In addition to bullish equity and derivatives trading, several analysts have reiterated their buy recommendations and increased their target price for Micron Tech. BMO, Susquehanna, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Baird, Evercore, Nomura and JPMorgan have all posted positive comments on the stock recently.
In the face of all this bullish information, short sellers are standing strong at the turn, having called every raise and waiting for the river card. Short sellers have increased their chip count since April 2017 and are now taking a breather in the last month – but they are not buying back shares, they are exchanging their blue chips for black chips. Over the last week, their short exposure has risen by 7%, from $3.66 billion to $3.91 billion. There is strong conviction on both sides of the market and they are all waiting for the river card to be flipped at 4:30.
Want deeper insight into the above analysis?
Contact: Ihor.Dusaniwsky@S3Partners.net
Managing Director Predictive Analytics, S3 Partners, LLC
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