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Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) Options Traders Eye an End-of-Week Rebound

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) is on the brink of oversold territory, and short-term options traders are betting on a bounce

Oct 11, 2016 at 1:50 PM
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Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) is fresh off a more than two-year low of $73.90, and was last seen sitting on a 2% loss at $73.93. Amid these technical woes, the drugmaker's options volume is slightly accelerated, running at 1.3 times the usual intraday pace -- with calls more than doubling puts.

Taking a quick step back, the demand for calls relative to puts is nothing new. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), traders have bought to open 2.27 GILD calls for every put in the past 20 sessions.

Echoing the call bias is the stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR). At 0.47, the SOIR indicates calls more than double puts among options expiring in the front three-months' series. Not to mention, this reading ranks in the call-skewed 11th percentile of its annual range.

In afternoon trading, nearly 28,000 calls have changed hands, versus about 11,000 puts. Among near-term traders, the most popular option is the weekly 10/14 76-strike call, where 2,500 contracts have traded. Based on what we're seeing, it seems safe to assume new positions are being purchased, as speculators bet on GILD to rebound above $76 by Friday's close, when the series expires.

Potentially working in the favor of short-term bulls is Gilead Sciences, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GILD) 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI). At 30, the RSI sits right on the threshold of oversold territory, suggesting a near-term pop could be in the cards.

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