JD.com stock is lower after Walmart confirmed it was selling its stake in the company
JD.com Inc (NASDAQ:JD) stock is sliding today, after Walmart (WMT) confirmed it was selling its stake in the China-based e-commerce giant to focus on other things such as China operations for Walmart China and Sam’s Club. At last look, JD was down 7% at $26.23, earlier as low as $25.85.
So far this week, JD has already mostly erased last week's 13.2% pop, which was its largest weekly rally since April. Back below all notable moving averages between the 20- and 320-day trendlines, the equity is down 8.7% year to date.
Options traders are chiming in after the news, with 88,000 calls and 35,000 puts exchanged so far -- seven times the overall options volume typically seen at this point. The January 2025 25-strike put is the most popular, followed by the weekly 8/23 27.50-strike call, with new positions being opened at the latter.
Options traders leaned bullish on JD ahead of today as well. The stock's 50-day call/put volume ratio of 5.74 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) ranks higher than 94% of readings from the past year., showing calls being picked up at a much faster-than-usual rate.