MoffettNathanson upgraded the social media stock
Shares of Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) are higher this morning, thanks to an upgrade to "neutral" from "sell" and a price-target hike to $9 from $7 at MoffettNathanson. Though the new price target still represents a 15% discount to Friday's close, the brokerage firm stated that the worst may be over for SNAP, as the company "reverses that ill-conceived redesign" of Snapchat. Further, the analysts waxed optimistic on the social media firm's "shift to a programmatic advertising model" and upcoming launch of a new Android app.
SNAP stock was up 3.1% at $10.91, at last check, set to retake its 10-day moving average for the first time since mid-April. Shares of the Snapchat parent gapped lower earlier this month on disappointing earnings, and touched a record low of $10.50 just last week, on May 17.
In the options pits, however, traders have been bullish in recent weeks, with data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) showing a 10-day call/put volume ratio of 2.01, ranking in the 88th annual percentile. This shows SNAP calls have been purchased over puts at a faster-than-usual clip.
Echoing this, the security's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.75 ranks in the bottom percentile of its annual range. In other words, speculative players have rarely been more heavily skewed toward calls over puts, looking at options that expire in the next three months.