Buzz Stocks: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Tesla Motors Inc, and Celator Pharmaceuticals Inc

U.S. stocks have continued their slide today, as traders anticipate rising interest rates following next month's Fed meeting. Among equities in focus today are retailer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT), electric automobile maker Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), and biotech stock Celator Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:CPXX).

• WMT is up 8.6% to $68.58, after coming out ahead of expectations in its latest earnings report. The company also offered a rosy current-quarter outlook. "We are very pleased with the traffic increases," said CFO Brett Biggs, "I think that goes along with what we are seeing with customer experience scores that continue to improve." WMT is one of the few retailers to report promising quarterly results, with many struggling to make up for decreased consumer appetites. There's likely quite a few options bears kicking rocks after this latest report, though, with WMT's 10-day put/call volume ratio at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) of 2.94 currently in the 99th percentile of its annual range. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) sits at its highest level in 12 months, suggesting an exceptional near-term put-bias.
  


• TSLA is down 0.3% at $210.51, after the firm announced plans to sell $1.7 billion in new stock to help ramp up the production of TSLA's Model 3, which will be the first affordable, consumer-level Tesla Motors Inc vehicle on the market. Despite impressive pre-sale interest in the Model 3, TSLA shares are down nearly 22% since their early April high of $269.34, and have underperformed the greater S&P 500 Index (SPX) by 13.1 percentage points over the last 20 sessions, prompting an influx of bearish betting. Tesla Motors Inc's 10-day ISE/CBOE/PHLX  put/call volume ratio of 1.28 sits in the 99th percentile of its annual range.
  


• CPXX is up 9.9% to $16.57 – not even a point from its April all-time high – after announcing that its blood cancer treatment, VYXEOS, was granted "breakthrough therapy" designation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The stock has been riding high on VYXEOS since mid-March, and is currently up a whopping 834% year-to-date. Celator Pharmaceuticals Inc has outperformed the broader SPX by 660.6 percentage points over the last 60 sessions, but not all traders are so quick to hop on the biotech's wagon, with the stock's short interest up 195.2% over the last two reporting periods, and shorted shares now accounting for 16.5% of the stock's available float.

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