Five Below, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIVE) is an American chain of specialty discount stores that mainly sells products priced between $1 and ... you guessed it, $5. The retailer steps into the earnings confessional after the market closes on Wednesday, December 1. Ahead of the event, options traders are moving in some interesting patterns.
Five Below stock sports a Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.25 that ranks at the bottom of its annual range. In other words, near-term speculators are more call-heavy than normal.
Looking at the stock's earnings history shows a mixed bag of results. There's a 13% post-earnings bear gap from September, but also a 7% pop back the day after June's results. Overall, FIVE averages a 6.7% post-earnings move, regardless of direction, the last two years. For Thursday's trading, the options market is pricing in a larger-than-usual post-earnings move of 12.4%, regardless of direction.
FIVE is up 19% in 2021. The shares pulled back sharply after hitting a record high of $237.86 on Aug. 25, but have since staged a nice bounce off their 320-day moving average.
Moreover, the discount retail company has increased its revenues 102% and its net income 153% since fiscal 2017. This is a decent growth rate but, arguably, doesn’t justify Five Below stock’s forward price-earnings ratio of 37.04. FIVE also trades at a rich price-earnings ratio of 44.52 and price-sales ratio of 4.62. The retail company also has a relatively weak balance sheet with $413 million in cash and $1.23 billion in total debt. Nonetheless, Five Below has generated decent figures over the past 12 months, with its revenues and net income up 31% and 110%, respectively, since fiscal 2020 which helped FIVE reach its high valuation.