The drugmaker is now up more than 20% in 2018
Shares of Biogen Inc (NASDAQ:BIIB) are soaring in early trading after the company this morning posted a second-quarter earnings beat and raised its full-year outlook. The pharmaceutical concern benefited from strong sales of its muscle disease drug, Spinraza, which actually doubled during the quarter. BIIB is up 6.8% at $382.50, at last check.
Looking at the charts, Biogen stock gapped higher earlier this month thanks to a Alzheimer's drug trial breakthrough, reclaiming positive year-to-date territory following a sharp downtrend from its late-January two-year high of $370.57. The stock now sports a year-to-date gain north of 20%.
Digging into options data, short-term traders are more call-skewed than usual, with BIIB's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.74 ranking in the 11th annual percentile. This indicates that near-term call open interest outweighs put open interest by a wider-than-usual margin.
Lastly, analyst sentiment has been heavily optimistic. Seventeen of 24 firms in coverage sport "buy" or "strong buy" recommendations, though Biogen stock's average 12-month price target of $369.42 comes in at a discount to current levels.