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Microsoft Rival Zooms to Record High After Monster Earnings Report

The equity is up over 530% year-to-date

Deputy Editor
Sep 1, 2020 at 12:54 PM
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The shares of Zoom Video Communications Inc (NASDAQ:ZM) are surging this afternoon, earlier roaring up the charts to a new all-time high of $478, after the company reported second-quarter earnings that doubled Wall Street's estimates. Additionally, revenue bested analysts' forecasts, leading the video conferencing powerhouse to raise its full-year forecast by more than 30%.

As a result, ZM is up 33.2% to trade at $433 at last check, and boasts a massive 531.6% year-to-date lead. Additionally, the equity has surged over 600% from its October 2019 all-time low of $60.96 -- no doubt helped by the increase of workers and students utilizing the video conferencing technology during coronavirus-related lockdowns. 

ZM Chart September 1

In response, no fewer than 12 analysts raised their price targets on ZM, the highest coming from BofA Global Research to $475 from $260. Meanwhile, BTIG upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral." There's still plenty of room for more bull notes, too. Coming into today, 10 in coverage consider Zoom a "buy" or better, compared to 11 saying "hold" or worse.

Meanwhile, short interest fell 20% during the last two reporting periods, and the 9.22 million shares sold short still takes up an eyebrow raising 28.7% of the equity's total available float. At the equity's average pace of daily trading, it would take shorts exactly one day to buy back their bearish bets.

Zoom stock has been seeing its fair share of bullish activity in the options pits. The stock's 10-day call/put volume ratio of 2.75 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) sits higher than 78% of readings from the past year. This means calls are being picked up at a faster-than-usual pace.
 
Today's options pits are full of ample activity on both sides of the ball. So far, 221,000 calls and 159,000 have crossed the tape today -- seven times the intraday average and volume pacing in the highest percentile of the stock's annual range. The most popular is the weekly 9/4 500-strike call, followed by the 400-strike put from the same series, with new positions being opened at both. 
 

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