Fuzzy Panda Research and Culper Research are short on AppLovin
AppLovin Corp (NASDAQ:APP) is down 13.9% to trade at $324.52 at last check, after Fuzzy Panda Research and Culper Research both said they were short on the tech name. The former said AppLovin steals data from Meta Platforms (META), and the latter noted it takes advantage of "app permissions that enable advertisements themselves to force-feed silent, backdoor app installations."
Short sellers have been building their positions over the past two weeks, with short interest up 12.9% in the last reporting period. The 14.10 million shares sold short now make up 6.1% of the equity's available float.
Despite its status as the best stock of 2024, APP could today mark its seventh-straight daily drop, as well as its biggest single-day percentage loss since December. The shares earlier gapped to their lowest level since November on a pullback from their Feb. 13, all-time high of $525.15, but sport a 443.8% year-over-year lead with support from the 100-day moving average.
Options traders are chiming in, with 120,000 calls and 85,000 puts traded so far -- triple the overall volume typically seen at this point. Most popular is the weekly 2/28 300-strike put, where new positions are being opened.
Options look like a good way to weigh in on APP, too, as it has tended to outperform options traders' volatility expectations over the past year. This is per its Schaeffer’s Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 85 out of 100.