Unusual Options Activity Fri 8/11/23

The following options are exhibiting notable trading, potentially indicating changing sentiment toward the underlying stocks, and/or potentially representing positioning for increased volatility.

Bullish Call Activity:

• MARA Aug 15 calls (volume: 1770, open int: 6810, implied vol: ~188%, prev day implied vol: 114%). Co is expected to report earnings mid-November.
• CLSK Aug 7.5 calls are seeing interest with the underlying stock up 11% (volume: 4870, open int: 2410, implied vol: ~133%, prev day implied vol: 118%). Co is scheduled to present at a HC Wainwright conference on September 11. Co is expected to report earnings mid-November.
• LRCX Aug 665 calls are seeing interest with the underlying stock down 4% (volume: 1950, open int: 0, implied vol: ~50%, prev day implied vol: 40%). Co is expected to report earnings mid-October.
  

Bearish Put Activity:

• RBLX Aug 30 puts (volume: 1560, open int: 3360, implied vol: ~93%, prev day implied vol: 57%). Co is expected to report earnings early November.
• CRWD Aug 150 puts (volume: 2170, open int: 490, implied vol: ~52%, prev day implied vol: 44%). 1K traded in a single transaction. Co is confirmed to report earnings August 30 after the close.
  

Sentiment: The CBOE Put/Call ratio is currently: 1.07, VIX: (15.64, -0.21, -1.3%).
August 18 is options expiration -- the last day to trade August equity options.

Unusual Options Activity Wed 8/2/23

The following options are exhibiting notable trading, potentially indicating changing sentiment toward the underlying stocks, and/or potentially representing positioning for increased volatility.

Bullish Call Activity:

• CRWD Aug 160 calls are seeing interest with the underlying down 7% (volume: 2410, open int: 690, implied vol: ~61%, prev day implied vol: 47%). Co is expected to report earnings late August.
  
• JNJ Aug 172.5 calls (volume: 23.2K, open int: 1090, implied vol: ~21%, prev day implied vol: 18%). Health Canada authorizes TECVAYLI a First-in-class bispecific antibody for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Co is scheduled to present at a conference on August 15. Co is expected to report earnings mid-October.
  

Bearish Put Activity:

• SQ Aug 72 puts are seeing interest with the underlying stock down 5% ahead of earnings tomorrow after the close (volume: 1920, open int: 260, implied vol: ~132%, prev day implied vol: 105%). 2K traded in a single transaction.
• GILD Aug 73 puts are seeing interest with the ahead of earnings tomorrow after the close  (volume: 2070, open int: 40, implied vol: ~54%, prev day implied vol: 47%).
  

Sentiment: The CBOE Put/Call ratio is currently: 0.84, VIX: (16.09, +2.16, +15.5%).
August 18 is options expiration -- the last day to trade August equity options.

==CrowdStrike (CRWD) reported earnings on Tue 29 Nov 22 (a/h)

 ** before earnings **

** charts after earnings **

CrowdStrike beats by $0.08, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs below consensus

• Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.40 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the S&P Capital IQ Consensus of $0.32; revenues rose 52.8% year/year to $580.88 mln vs the $575.06 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.
  • Added 1,460 net new subscription customers in the quarter for a total of 21,146 subscription customers as of October 31, 2022, representing 44% growth year-over-year.
  • Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) increased 54% year-over-year and grew to $2.34 billion as of October 31, 2022, of which $198.1 million was net new ARR added in the quarter.
• Co added, "[T]otal net new ARR was below our expectations as increased macroeconomic headwinds elongated sales cycles with smaller customers and caused some larger customers to pursue multi-phase subscription start dates, which delays ARR recognition until future quarters."
• Co issues mixed guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.42-0.45, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.34 S&P Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of $619.1-628.2 mln vs. $634.19 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.

Earnings this week : Nov 28 - Dec 2, 22 (wk 48)

Monday (Nov 28)

• Afternoon: ARWR AZEK

Tuesday (Nov 29)

• Morning: BNS BZUN BILI CRNC HIBB SJR
• Afternoon:  CMP CRWD HPE INTU NTAP WDAY

Wednesday (Nov 30)

• Morning:  DCI FRO HRL BEKE LESL WOOF RY SFL TITN
• Afternoon:  BOX CRDO ESTC FIVE GIII LZB NCNO NTNX OKTA PSTG PVH CRM SMTC SNOW SPLK SNPS VSCO YEXT

Thursday (Dec 1)

• Morning: BMO BIG CM DBI DG KR PDCO SCWX TD
• Afternoon:  AMBA AOUT ASAN CHPT IOT  MRVL PD SMAR PATH ULTA VEEV ZS ZUMZ

Friday (Dec 2)  

• Morning:  CBRL GCO

CRWD : initiated with a Sell at Citigroup

The stock traded at nearly 24x forward sales with market cap over $13 bln coming into today.

CrowdStrike stock went public in mid-June, after the company priced its initial public offering (IPO) at $34 per share. The equity subsequently rallied as high as $101.88 in late August, before embarking on a steep pullback. Specifically, CRWD is off more than 40% since the aforementioned peak, and touched a record low of $51.61 on Sept. 30.

CrowdStrike (CRWD) reported earnings on Thur 5 Sept 19 (a/h)

** charts before earnings **

** charts after earnings **

CrowdStrike beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus; raises FY20 EPS and rev above consensus

Reports Q2 (Jul) loss of $0.18 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the S&P Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.23); revenues rose 94.1% year/year to $108.1 mln vs the $103.79 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.  ARR of $423.8 million, grew 104% year-over-year

Co issues upside guidance for Q3, sees EPS of ($0.12-0.11), excluding non-recurring items, vs. ($0.14) S&P Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q3 revs of $117-119.5 mln vs. $110.98 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.

Co issues upside guidance for FY20, sees EPS of ($0.65-0.62), excluding non-recurring items, from ($0.72-0.70) vs. ($0.71) S&P Capital IQ Consensus; raises FY20 revs to $445.4-451.8 mln frin $430-436 mln vs. $435.04 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.

"We delivered a strong second quarter with rapid subscription revenue growth and record net new ARR generated in the quarter," said George Kurtz, CrowdStrike's co-founder and chief executive officer. "Customer growth accelerated as an increasing number of organizations recognize the power of CrowdStrike's cloud-native Falcon platform to effectively stop breaches and simplify their security stack with our single-agent architecture. We secured a record number of net new subscription customers in the quarter. In addition, as of July 31, 2019, 50% of our subscription customers had adopted four or more cloud modules, underscoring the continued success of our platform strategy."

Earnings this week : Sept 2 - 6, 19 (wk 36)

Monday (Sept 2)

• Labor Day Holiday

Tuesday (Sept 3)

• Morning: CONN NSSC TUFN
• Afternoon: COUP EGAN GSM HQY

Wednesday (Sept 4)

• Morning: AEO MIK  NAV VRA
• Afternoon: AVAV HOME CLDR CPRT DSGX MDB PANW PVTL REVG WORK SMAR VRNT

Thursday (Sept 5)

• Morning: BITA CIEN DCI GIII JW.A KIRK LE LVGO MDP SCWX SIG
• Afternoon: ABM CDMO CRWD DOCU DOMO GWRE KFY LULU MDLA PD NX SAIC ZM ZUMZ

Friday (Sept 6) 

• Morning: BRC GCO

Notable earnings reports:

• Coupa Software (NASDAQ:COUP) on September 3; Slack Technologies (WORK), Palo Alto Networks (NYSE:PANW), MongoDB (NASDAQ:MDB), Cloudera (NYSE:CLDR) and Pivotal Software (NYSE:PVTL) on September 4; Lululemon (LULU), DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU), Signet Jewelers (NYSE:SIG) and Zoom Video (NASDAQ:ZM) on September 5; Brady (NYSE:BRC) on September 6.

IPOs this week : July 22 - 26, 19

The week in IPOs kicks off with a pricing of

• Fellazo (FLLCU) on July 23, 
• followed by a busy Wednesday with pricing for Sunnova Energy (NOVA), Health Catalyst (HCAT), Livongo Health (LVGO), Casle Biosciences (CSTL) and Prosight Global (PROS). 
• Thursday pricings are due for the IPOs of Wanda Sports Group (WSG) and Vista Oil & Gas (VIST). 

Quiet period expirations come for

• Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) and Mohawk Group (NASDAQ:MWK) on July 22, 
• for Fiverr (NYSE:FVRR) on July 23, 
• and Chewy (NYSE:CHWY) on July 24.