Roku also announced it'll be offering the ESPN+ streaming service
Roku Inc (NASDAQ:ROKU) stock is one of the top gainers in early trading, up 8.5% at $35.84. The move comes after hedge fund Point72 revealed a 5.1% passive stake in the company, with news the streaming technology provider will offer Disney's ESPN+ also providing a boost. As such, ROKU shares could notch their highest settlement in a month.
Looking closer at the charts, the security recently bounced from the $29 level -- roughly half its December record high of $58.80. Shortly after bottoming here, the shares took back the 20-day moving average for the first time since their February bear gap, and are now trading above the $31.50 price point, which is two times their all-time low.
Meanwhile, today's positive price action is seemingly good news for Roku options traders. That's because the equity's 10-day call/put volume ratio across the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows four calls have been bought to open for every put during the past two weeks. Said simply, speculators appear to be quite bullish.
It's also worth noting that the top nine open interest positions for ROKU are in the April series, meaning they'll expire at the close this Friday. Peak open interest sits at the April 50 call, followed by the April 60 call. Total call open interest is currently 72,931 contracts, a number that ranks in the 70th annual percentile.
Rounding out the sentiment scene, just two of the six analysts covering Roku say to buy the shares, and short interest represents over 49% of the total float. This latter data point is somewhat misleading, however, given how heavily traded the security has been. Specifically, it would take less than two sessions for short sellers to buy back their shares, based on average daily volumes.