Options players are targeting December puts today
While Slack Technologies Inc (NYSE:WORK) doesn't report its third-quarter earnings for another two weeks on Dec. 4, it looks as if the options pits are already gearing up for even more downside for the struggling stock, which is now off roughly 50% since going public back in late June. While WORK's 10-day call/put volume ratio at the the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows that over two calls have been bought for every put during the past two weeks, today's activity tells a different story.
At last glace, 15,000 puts had exchanged hands -- 1.9 times the intraday average -- compared to only 3,952 calls. The most popular is the weekly 12/6 20-strike put, where these contracts are being bought, followed by the December 20 put, where new positions are being opened. This means these bears are expecting a significant drop in the month of December, following WORK's earnings report.
This pessimism isn't surprising, considering Slack's virtually nonstop slide on the charts, which has been sliced nearly in half since its debut, as we previously mentioned. Not only that, the stock hasn't enjoyed a single monthly win since its IPO, and just came off a fresh low of $19.53 from Tuesday. Today, the stock is down 0.4% to trade at $21.22.
Despite this, eight analysts in coverage still call WORK a "strong buy," compared to seven who say "hold" or "strong sell." What's more, the consensus 12-month price target of $30.63 hasn't been touched since early September. The equity did get hit with a downgrade from Wedbush last week, and other analysts could follow suit -- creating even more headwinds on the charts.
Like we mentioned last week, there is quite a bit of short interest already tied up in the stock, which continues to attract even more attention -- up 46.5% during the last two reporting periods to an all-time high of 42.71 million shares sold short. These bearish bets make up a solid 22% of WORK's available float, or nearly a week's worth of trading, at the security's average pace.