People watch stocks for different reasons -- they're waiting for a dip in price, watching for a specific catalyst, gathering all the news and information that might affect stocks they already own, or considering a sell. Regardless of their motivation, we can better understand market sentiment by seeing who's watching what. With the Fool's free My Watchlist service, we have tens of thousands of people telling us the businesses that have, for whatever reason, piqued their interest.

The most-watched semiconductor stock is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is above the rest in terms of watch interest, the percentage of people keeping an eye on Semiconductor stocks in general who are specifically watching each company. And for good reason. As CAPS All-Star jvaskonen wrote last week:

Still king in the gaming graphics world. I have also seen some interesting ideas for non-video uses of their processors, which do certain types of processes insanely fast, and at a much much lower cost than fancy supercomputer hardware -- something cash strapped grad students could afford.

Here are the rest of the top 15 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS rating to show the sentiment of our investing community.

 

Company

Market Cap (millions)

CAPS Rating

Watch Interest

1

NVIDIA

$11,426

****

18.9%

2

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC)

$111,626

****

14.9%

3

Cirrus Logic (Nasdaq: CRUS)

$1,454

****

2.8%

4

ARM Holdings

$11,852

***

2.6%

5

Cypress Semiconductor

$3,437

*****

2.4%

6

FormFactor

$533

*****

2.4%

7

Cree (Nasdaq: CREE)

$4,950

***

2.4%

8

Veeco Instruments (Nasdaq: VECO)

$2,019

****

2.4%

9

Linear Technology

$7,502

****

2.3%

10

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD)

$5,966

**

2.3%

11

Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU)

$11,519

****

2.2%

12

Atheros Communications

$3,257

****

2.1%

13

First Solar

$13,166

**

2.0%

14

Applied Materials

$20,411

*****

1.8%

15

Skyworks Solutions (Nasdaq: SWKS)

$6,040

****

1.6%

Sources: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts like Intel or are watching an up-and-comer like FormFactor, it pays to watch. We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service. Click here to start now.