Uber Suspends Ride Pool, Stock Sinks

Calls and puts are both trading at an elevated clip today

Lillian Currens

Digital Content Manager

Mar 17, 2020 at 11:22 AM

UBER

News that Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE:UBER) is suspending all carpool or "pooled" rides in the U.S. an Canada in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has the ride-share concern down 8.3% to trade at $18.66 -- earlier touching a record low of $18.01. Senior vice president Andrew Macdonald said in a statement, "our goal is to help flatten the curve on community spread in the cities we serve."

Options players are sitting up and taking notice of UBER today, with 55,000 puts and 39,000 calls across the tape so far, 1.4 times the intraday average. The June 22 put is the most popular, while on the call side, the 40-strike in the same series is seeing plenty of action.

Analysts are still overwhelmingly bullish. Thirty of the 35 in coverage consider UBER a "buy" or better, with not a single sell to be seen. Plus, the consensus 12-month target price of $47.58 is more than double current levels.

Short sellers, meanwhile, have been piling on their bearish bets. In the last reporting period, short interest shot up 19.2%, and now represents 5.2% of UBER's available float, or 1.4 days at its average pace of trading.

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