GOOGL Rises on Big Brick-and-Mortar Reveal

The shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) are up 1.5% at $2,305.29 this afternoon, after the company announced its first-ever first retail store, expected to open this summer. The brick-and-mortar store, located in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood in the same building as Google's NYC offices, will sell Pixel phones and Pixelbooks, as well as Fitbit and Nest products, among other items. In addition, the Google store will offer technical support for various Google devices.

Digging deeper, the security still recently removed from an April 28 all-time high of $2,431.38, though its been chopping lower on the charts of late. Today, GOOGL is testing its footing at the 20-day moving average, after an eight-session streak of closes below the trendline, and sports a 2021 lead of 31.6%.

Analysts are overwhelmingly optimistic towards Alphabet stock, with 34 of the 35 in coverage sporting a "buy" or better rating. Echoing this is the security's 12-month consensus target price of $2,739.05, which is an 18.8% premium to current levels.

Today's options pits are echoing that optimistic sentiment, as calls are more popular than usual. In fact, 32,000 calls have exchanged hands today, which is 1.8 times the intraday average. Most popular is the May 2,320 call, where new positions are being opened, tailed closely by the 2,300 call from the same series. This shows options traders see more of upside for the underlying security by the time these contracts expire tomorrow.

For those looking to weigh in on Alphabet stock's next move with options, now seems like a solid opportunity. The security's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 26% sits in the relatively low 17th percentile of its annual range, meaning option players are pricing in low volatility expectations at the moment. What's more, its Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 80 out of 100, indicates the shares have regularly made bigger moves than option traders were expecting during the past 12 months.