Morgan Stanley upgraded SNOW to "overweight" from "equal weight"
Cloud stock Snowflake Inc (NYSE:SNOW) is up 9.7% to trade at $302.56 at last check, after an upgrade from Morgan Stanley to "overweight" from "equal weight." The analyst in coverage cited the company's strong performance, as well as its expansion opportunities, adding that Snowflake has better fundamentals than it did when it went public last year.
This favorable price action has SNOW continuing its late January bounce off the $232 level, and breaking above pressure at its 20-day moving average, which had helped put the rally on pause. Year-to-date, the equity was down 18.6% coming into today.
Despite calls outnumbering puts on an absolute basis, the stock's 50-day put/call volume ratio of 0.64 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) is higher than all but 1% of readings in its annual range. This suggests a very healthy appetite for long puts of late.
Snowflake stock's options pits are particularly energetic this morning. So far, 6,087 calls and 2,618 puts have crossed the tape, with overall volume running at three times what's typically seen at this point. The weekly 2/11 300-strike call is the most popular by far, with new positions being bought to open there.