Wednesday’s Vital Data: Snap Inc (SNAP), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA) and Micron Technology, Inc. (MU)

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U.S. stock futures are holding up remarkably well considering how the U.S. political landscape was thrown into chaos yesterday. But Wall Street has since rebounded from the initial shock of Donald Trump Jr.’s email exchanges regarding Russian support for his father’s presidential campaign. The rebound even seems to be overshadowing concern about Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s appearance before Congress later this morning.

Wednesday’s Vital Data: Snap Inc (SNAP), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA) and Micron Technology, Inc. (MU)Oil appears to be greasing the wheels on the Street, after futures jumped more than 2% to $45.76 per barrel in the wake of a pullback in U.S. supplies.

Heading into the open, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average have added 0.51%, S&P 500 futures are up 0.47% and Nasdaq-100 futures have risen 0.76%.

On the options front, volume remained constrained on Tuesday, arriving below average with about 12.7 million calls and 10.8 million puts changing hands. On the CBOE, the single-session equity put/call volume ratio rose to 0.69 and the 10-day moving average held at 0.64.

Taking a closer look at Tuesday’s options activity, Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) put options gained popularity after Morgan Stanley, the company’s lead IPO underwriter, downgraded the shares. Meanwhile, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) rose sharply on comparisons between its Singles Day shopping event and Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime Day. Finally, Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) was reiterated with a “buy” rating at Citigroup.

Wednesday’s Vital Options Data: Snap Inc (SNAP), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA) and Micron Technology, Inc. (MU)

Snap Inc (SNAP)

Things are going poorly well for Snapchat’s parent company. How poorly? Even the company’s lead IPO underwriter has come out to downgrade SNAP stock. Morgan Stanley yesterday cut SNAP from “outperform” to “equal weight” and lowered its price target to $16 from $28.

In a statement to clients, Morgan Stanley noted:

“We have been wrong about Snap’s ability to innovate and improve its ad product this year and user monetization as it works to move beyond ‘experimental’ ad budgets into larger branded and direct response ad allocations.”

SNAP options trader took the not so subtle hint and bailed. Volume topped 365,000 contracts for Snap on Tuesday, setting a near-term high for the shares. What’s more, put volume accounted for 55% of all of yesterday’s activity.

In fact, puts have been on the rise for some time, with SNAP’s July put/call open interest ratio soaring to a high of 1.18, as puts easily outnumber calls among near-term options. Given yesterday’s activity in the options pits, and the souring mood in the brokerage community, SNAP could have further yet to fall.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA)

Amazon was the talk of the retail sector yesterday amid the company’s 20th anniversary Prime Day event. Amazon hopes the day would be its biggest sales day ever, topping last year’s estimated take of $525 million.

And yet, as CNBC noted yesterday, Amazon’s biggest day ever would be a drop in the bucket compared to Alibaba’s $17.8 billion in sales during last year’s Singles Day event. For comparison, Alibaba rakes in about 10% of Amazon’s full year revenue in just one day. Cyber Monday sales, the U.S. e-commerce market’s biggest day of the year, totaled sales of just $3.4 billion last year.

The report was an eye-opener for BABA traders, who flooded the stock with call options yesterday. More than 287,000 contracts traded on BABA stock on Tuesday, with calls snapping up 71% of the day’s take.

The stock’s July put/call OI ratio remains stubbornly just outside of a bullish extreme, however, arriving at 0.59 as of this morning’s translation, which, for the time being, is a good thing for BABA stock as the shares trek higher.

Micron Technology, Inc. (MU)

Micron Technology received a bit of a boost amid the continued tech-sector rally on Tuesday. Citigroup came out to reiterate its “buy” rating and $45 price target on the shares. The brokerage firm also noted that PC shipments remained strong, with June Taiwan notebook shipments above expectations, and DRAM prices continue to rise, bolstering Micron’s bottom line.

MU stock options traders joined in the revelry. Volume rose to just shy of 250,000 contracts, with calls making up 67% of the day’s take. Optimism is reaching heady levels for MU stock, however, with the July put/call OI ratio dropping to 0.44, as calls outnumber puts among short-term options.

Furthermore, MU is staring up at more than 48,000 calls at the July $32 strike, which could create short-term headwinds for the shares.

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/2017/07/wednesday-vital-data-snap-inc-snap-alibaba-group-holding-ltd-baba-micron-technology-inc-mu/.

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