SPOT recently pulled below its newly formed 50-day moving average
Shares of Spotify Technology SA (NYSE:SPOT) are up 1.3% in electronic trading, after Guggenheim hiked its price target on the music streaming stock to $210 from $175. The lift represents 16.7% upside to last night's close at $179.91, and record-high territory for the shares. Overall analyst sentiment echos Guggenheim's optimistic outlook, with 16 of the 22 brokerages covering SPOT sporting a "buy" or better recommendation.
Digging deeper, Spotify stock has been chopping higher since its direct listing earlier this year, up 8.4% from its April 3 open at $165.90. More recently, though, a Sept. 5 pullback brought the shares below the formerly supportive -- and newly formed -- 50-day moving average.
On the sentiment front, short sellers have been actively targeting SPOT stock. Short interest surged 22.6% in the two most recent reporting period to 3.38 million shares. However, this represents just 4.2% of the stock's total available float, and would take less than four days for shorts to buy back their bearish bets.
Options traders, on the other hand, have shown a preference for long calls over puts -- though some of this activity could be indicative of shorts
hedging with options. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), speculative players have bought to open 8,539 calls, compared to 2,732 puts in the last 10 days.