The shares of Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) are up 1.9% in electronic trading, after Bank of America touted improved revenue for the company’s upcoming second-quarter earnings. The analyst cited a sharp increase app downloads to near record levels last month due to the Snapchat app's "gender-face-swap" filter. The brokerage firm lifted its price target to $17 from $12. Snap will report second-quarter earnings after the close on July 23.
Should today's price action hold, Snap stock will have nabbed a fresh 12-month high. Much has been made of SNAP's meteoric rise in 2019, so let's put it another way; the stock has finished with weekly losses only twice since May, and only seven times overall in 2019. A pullback to start July found support at the shares' 20-day moving average, a trendline that served as resistance for most of 2018.
Perhaps due to its brutal 2018, there is plenty of pent-up pessimism toward SNAP among analysts and short sellers. Despite a recent bull note, 84% of analysts in coverage rate the equity a "hold" or "strong sell," and its consensus 12-month price target of $12.24 is a discount to last night's closing perch at $15.26.
And while short interest has fallen 10.7% in the two most recent reporting periods, the 81.08 million shares sold short still accounts for 12.3% of SNAP's total available float. A continued exodus of these bearish bets could keep the wind at the security's back.
Now is the time to pursue options on Snap stock. Its Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 43% ranks in the 6th annual percentile, indicating short-term options are pricing in relatively low volatility expectations at the moment. What's more, SNAP has had a tendency to make bigger moves than options traders were pricing in over the past year. The stock's Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) sits at a relatively high 91, which could make buying premium an even more attractive choice.