Tuesday’s Vital Data: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Tesla Inc (TSLA) and Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)

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U.S. stock futures are pointing to an extension of Wall Street’s record run, as traders come back refreshed from the President’s Day break. Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD) is up on strong earnings results, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s (NYSE:WMT) earnings are waiting in the wings. Meanwhile, the Markit February preliminary purchasing managers’ manufacturing and services indexes are on tap later this morning.

Tuesday’s Vital Data: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Tesla Inc (TSLA) and Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)Against this backdrop, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up 0.29%, with S&P 500 futures adding 0.18% and Nasdaq-100 futures up 0.17%.

On the options front, volume remained brisk on Friday with about 18.6 million calls and 16.1 million puts changing hands on the session. Over on the CBOE, the single-session equity put/call volume ratio arrived at 0.59, while the 10-day moving average dropped to a two-month low of 0.63.

Turning to Friday’s volume leaders, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) hit fresh all-time-high territory on Friday, following a new data on Apple Pay’s acceptance at U.S. retailers. Elsewhere, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is seeing renewed call activity ahead of this Wednesday’s quarterly earnings report and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) tagged a new all-time high on Friday, joining the rest of the so-called “FANG” stocks in record territory.

Tuesday’s Vital Options Data: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)

Apple Inc. (AAPL)

Forget about iPhones and iPads, the new driver for AAPL stock is services. On Friday, a report emerged that one of those services, Apple Pay, is now accepted by 36% of U.S. retailers, with another 22% expected to start accepting the service in the next 12 months. The narrative on Apple Pay has only grown more bullish since CEO Tim Cook’s statement that Apple Pay transactions were up 500% year-over-year in the most recent fiscal quarter.

AAPL options traders jumped on the report, sending more than 920,000 contracts across the tape on the shares. Furthermore, calls accounted for an above average 67% of the day’s take. AAPL may be trading near all-time highs, but that hasn’t stopped options traders from setting their sights even higher, with more than 36,000 call contracts open at the March $140 strike and another 8,500 at the $145 strike.

With AAPL breaking through peak March call OI at $135 on Friday, look for options traders to adjust their targets even higher, resulting in another round of heavy call activity this week.

Tesla Inc. (TSLA)

Electric car guru Tesla is slated to take the earnings stage this Wednesday amid mixed sentiment. Wall Street is expecting a loss of 30 cents per share on revenue of $2.2 billion, though the whisper number is pricing in a wider loss of 41 cents per share.

Per-share results may be moot, however, as traders will be looking for information on deliveries and Model 3 production, which is slated to begin this week. Tesla has more than 370,000 Model 3 preorders for the Model 3 and CEO Elon Musk has promised production of 500,000 cars per year by 2018, but Tesla only delivered 76,000 vehicles in all of 2016.

Options traders are naturally skeptical of TSLA stock, especially with the shares pulling back from their recent all-time highs. On Friday, TSLA options activity underscored that trepidation, with calls only eking out 51% of the more than 473,000 contracts traded. Currently, peak 24 Feb call OI totals 4,800 contracts at the $305 strike, while peak 24 Feb put OI numbers 1,900 at $260. Implieds are pricing in a roughly 7% move for TSLA stock following earnings.

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)

AMZN stock was the last of the so-called “FANG” stocks to reach all-time-high territory on Friday, though the shares are still stymied by overhead resistance at $850. However, Amazon may be ready for a breakout, and options traders appear to be preparing for additional upside.

Friday’s call activity came in slightly above average for AMZN, with these typically bullish bets accounting for 53% of the 302,000 contracts traded. Furthermore, the March put/call open interest ratio has steadily declined for the past couple of weeks.

While the ratio currently rests at a bearish leaning 1.22, it has dropped from a perch north of 1.30 as calls are added at a faster rate than puts — a trend that could signify options traders’ expectations of additional gains for AMZN stock.

As of this writing, Joseph Hargett did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2017/02/tuesday-vital-data-apple-inc-aapl-tesla-inc-tsla-and-amazon-com-inc-amzn/.

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