Elon Musk earlier tweeted that he planned to buy Manchester United before later claiming it was a joke
Tesla (TSLA) owner Elon Musk is shaking up another stock via Twitter (TWTR) after he posted on his personal account: "To be clear, I support the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party! Also, I'm buying Manchester United ur (sic) welcome - Elon Musk." The tweet lifted the hopes of many Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MAN) fans, who believe its time for Glazer family -- the team's current owner -- to sell.
However, these hopes were dashed after Musk came back saying the tweet was part of "a long-running joke." While many are disappointed in Musk's apparent joke, Manchester United stock is weathering the tweet storm, and was last seen up 5.7% at $13.51, as it attempts to chip away at its nearly 25% year-over-year deficit.
MANU's stock performance during the past 12 months has been shaky to say the least. The equity jumped as high as $20.86 in September 2021, before suffering a dramatic bear gap early the next month that it has yet to recover from. Long-time pressure at the stock's 160-day has reemerged, too, keeping a lid on the security's recent rally attempt. Today's pop could put the shares back above this trendline for the first time all year, however.
Despite it's rocky price action on the charts, options traders remain optimistic. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), MANU sports a 50-day call/put volume ratio of 15.91, which sits higher than 82% of readings from the past year. In other words, these traders are picking up long calls at a much quicker-than-usual clip.
Echoing this, the stock's Schaeffer's put/call volume ratio (SOIR) of 0.29 stands higher than just 1% of annual readings. This means short-term options players have rarely been more call-biased.