The billionaire investor now owns 8% of the beverage can maker
Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CCK) is rallying from its recent two-year lows this morning, after investor Carl Icahn upped his stake in the beverage can maker. Per the Wall Street Journal, Icahn now owns more than 8%, or roughly $700 million, of Crown Holdings, and believes the company should sell non-core units and repurchase more shares. Just last week, Crown trimmed its fiscal year guidance due to a higher dollar and energy costs.
At last glance, CCK is 4.9% higher to trade at $70.06. The shares remain below a late-October bear gap that followed rejection from the descending 40-day moving average. Since then though, the stock has consolidated around the $70 level. Any distance created from this level would be interesting to watch today.
It's also worth noting that the stock's 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) of 25.9 is firmly in "oversold" territory and near annual lows, meaning a short-term bounce like today could have been overdue.
Calls are growing in popularity, slowly. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), CCK sports a 10-day call/put volume ratio of 0.47 that sits in the 91st percentile of its 12-month range. So while puts still outnumber calls on an absolute basis, the high percentile indicates long calls have been picked up at a much quicker-than-usual clip during the past 10 weeks.