Options bears are piling on the equity
Workday Inc (NASDAQ:WDAY) attracted price-target cuts from three brokerages this morning, with the lowest from Barclays to $249 from $262. These bear notes came after the company lowered its subscription revenue growth target for the next three years during its analyst day, citing macroeconomic challenges. At last glance, WDAY was down 7.9% to trade at $212.54.
Options traders are responding to the update, with 8,063 puts and 4,515 calls traded so far today, or 17 times the intraday average volume. Most popular is the weekly 9/29 200-strike put, where new positions are being opened.
This penchant for bearish bets has been prevalent, per the equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 1.12, which ranks in the 90th percentile of annual readings. Echoing this, WDAY's 10-day put/call volume ratio of 2.79 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) stands in the 94th percentile of its annual range.
Shares are today trading at their lowest level since June, though support at the 200-day moving average looks ready to contain losses. This gap lower has the stock further removing itself from its Sept. 11, one-year high of $252.72. So far in 2023, Workday stock is still up 25.9%.