Paramount hopes to offset a slow ad market with higher streaming prices
Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) stock is down 3.1% to trade at $23.77 at last check, after the company's fourth-quarter profits of 8 cents per share grossly missed expectations of 25 cents per share.
Revenue of $8.13 billion also came in below analysts' estimates, as a struggling advertising market contributed to the dismal results. The company hopes to offset these concerns by hiking the price of its streaming service.
The security's rally earlier this month lost steam just shy of the $26 level. The 30-day moving average contained that pullback, though, with shares bouncing off its support before today's bear gap. PARA has added 35.6% so far in 2023, but carries a 22.5% year-over-year deficit.
Analysts are overwhelmingly bearish on Paramount Global stock, with 14 of the 20 in question calling it a tepid "hold" or worse. Plus, the 86.02 million shares sold short now make up 15% of the equity's available float, or more than one week's worth of pent-up buying power.
Options bulls are chiming in, though, with 9,060 calls exchanged so far today, which is triple the intraday average volume, compared to 3,491 puts. The most popular contract is the February 25 call.
Today's penchant for bullish bets is far from being the norm. In fact, short-term options traders have been much more bearish than usual, per PARA's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 1.56, which sits higher than all readings from the past 12 months.