Streamers will be able to buy products fulfilled by Walmart on Roku's platform
Roku Inc (NASDAQ:ROKU) is back in the spotlight, roughly one week after the equity was buzzing on a potential acquisition by Netflix (NFLX). This time, what's boosting the stock is a new partnership with Walmart (WMT), which seeks to make the streaming concern the next e-commerce shopping destination by enabling streamers to purchase products fulfilled by Walmart on its platform. At last check, ROKU is up 3.7% at $81.45.
It's been a rough year for Roku stock thus far. Despite today's pop, the security is still struggling with overhead pressure from the 60-day moving average, which has guided the shares lower since August 2021. The stock is fresh off a June 13, two-year low of $72.83, and carries a 65.6% year-to-date deficit.
Short sellers have already started to hit the exits, though. Short interest is down 11.5% in the most recent reporting period, but the 8.14 million shares sold short still make up 6.8% of the stock's available float.
Short-term options traders remain firmly bullish towards Roku stock, with a heavy call-bias still in place. This is per the equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.52, which currently sits higher than just 1% of readings from the past 12 months.
Options look like a great way to weigh in on ROKU's next moves, given its Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) tally of 83 out of 100. This indicates the equity has consistently realized bigger returns than options traders have priced in over the past year, which is a good thing for buyers.