Virgin Galactic rescheduled its New Mexico test flight due to stay-at-home orders
The shares of Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (NYSE:SPCE) are down 6.1% at $20.92 at last check, after the space travel company said it would reschedule a test flight from its New Mexico spaceport later this week due to newly enacted, statewide stay-at-home orders through Nov. 30. The company said 600 customers have signed up to go on a suborbital flight for $250,000 a ticket, and that more than 400 others have expressed interest.
Digging deeper, the equity has experienced its fair share of volatility over the past year. After the stock's mid-March bear gap following its Feb 20 all-time high of $42.49, SPCE has made multiple rally attempts with support at the 320-day moving average. More recently, Virgin Galactic stock has been fighting overhead pressure at the $22 mark, and still sports a 117% year-over-year lead.
Analysts are particularly optimistic toward SPCE, with all five in coverage sporting a "buy" or better rating. Echoing this is the stock's 12-month consensus target price of $25.78, which is a 22.7% premium to current levels.
Meanwhile, shorts are building their positions as well. Short interest is up 15.8% in the last two reporting periods, and the 46.99 million shares sold short make up a jaw-dropping 87.6% of the security's available float.
Drilling down to today's options activity, 146,000 calls have crossed the tape, which is double the average intraday amount. However, the November 20 put is still the most popular, followed by the 25 call in the same monthly series, with new positions being opened at the former.