The retail stock has had a volatile year
The shares of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ:BBBY) are down 0.6% to trade at $17.31 this morning, after the company announced co-founders Warren Eisenberg and Leonard Feinstein will retire from the board, while five new independent directors to its C-suite. A business transformation and strategy review committee will be formed too, after receiving pressure from activist investors to overhaul the company.
Earlier this month, Bed Bath & Beyond stock gapped lower after a subpar quarterly report. However, the shares held on to the $17 level, an area of support possibly targeted among shareholders via options. Year-to-date, BBBY is up roughly 50%. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of skepticism surrounding the shares, with 37% of the equity's total available float sold short and the majority of analysts in coverage rating it a "hold" or worse.
And as alluded to above, the security's options pits show a distinct put bias. BBBY's 10-day put/call volume ratio of 1.49 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) ranking in the 81st annual percentile. This means that puts have been bought to open over calls at an accelerated clip in recent weeks. Echoing this, the stock's Schaeffer’s put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 2.68 sits in the 86th percentile of its annual range, underscoring a rare put-skew among near-term options traders.