GM has broken past a key trendline
Fresh off an earnings victory earlier this week, the shares of General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) are up 1.1% to trade at $36.87 this morning, despite reports of the auto giant halting two renovation projects in Detroit, citing "structural costs are not aligned with the market realities."
General Motors stock gapped higher on Wednesday in the wake of its blowout third-quarter earnings report. However, the shares stalled just below their 100-day moving average. The bump today takes GM past this trendline, and on track for its best week since June. Overall, though, the equity is still staring at a 10% deficit for 2018.
Short sellers have been piling on recently. Short interest increased by nearly 26% in the last two reporting periods to 28.10 million shares, the most since April 15. However, this bearish sentiment is not shared in the analyst community, where eight out of the 12 brokerages covering GM rate it a "buy" or better.
In the options pits, calls are the preferred choice. Data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows 2.38 calls were bought to open during the past 10 days for every put. Meanwhile, the January 2019 45-strike call is home to peak open interest of 104,727 contracts, dwarfing the 63,840 contracts at the next closest strike.