GoDaddy Inc (GDDY) puts are being bought to open for once
Domain marketplace
GoDaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) is off 2.5% today at $32.10, and option bears have wasted little time getting in on the action. Put volume is running at over 12 times the normal intraday amount, and outstrips call volume eight times over. Leading the way by a mile is the January 2016 33-strike put, with all signs pointing to buy-to-open activity. These speculators are betting on GDDY to extend its losses before front-month options expire at the close on Friday, Jan. 15.
This preference for put buying is highly unusual for the stock's speculators. Over the past two weeks at the
International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), over 10 GDDY calls have been bought to open for each put.
Analysts share this same optimism. Precisely 90% of covering brokerage firms say GDDY is a "buy" or better, with zero calling it a "sell."
However, that doesn't mean everyone on Wall Street is sold on the stock. GDDY's short-interest ratio stands at an elevated 7.90, meaning it would take almost eight sessions for short sellers to buy back their bets, going by average daily volumes.
When looking at the charts, the bullish positions seem to make more sense. GoDaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) has outpaced the broader S&P 500 Index (SPX) by over 22 percentage points in the past three months, and hit an all-time high of $35.35 earlier this month.