The stock's September 17.50 puts have more than doubled in value since Aug. 28
Rev Group Inc (NYSE: REVG) has tanked 11.8% to $13.89 in today's trading, after the company reported an adjusted fiscal third-quarter profit of 38 cents per share on revenue of $597.7 million -- well below Wall Street's forecast for earnings of 44 cents per share on $649.6 million in sales. REVG also lowered its full-year revenue guidance to a range between $2.4 billion and $2.5 billion, just shy of the consensus estimate of $2.51 billion, "primarily due to continued chassis availability issues and impact of longer material lead times."
The stock's post-earnings sell-off -- and the resulting short-sale restriction -- has sparked unusually heavy options volume on REVG, which typically doesn't garner much attention from speculative players. So far, 1,205 puts and 261 calls have changed hands, which represents about nine times the expected intraday volume. In fact, today's put activity has already set a new 52-week high.
The most active strike is REVG's September 17.50 put, where 1,021 contracts have been exchanged -- accounting for nearly all of today's put volume. Trade-Alert data shows that most of the 1,030 contracts in open interest at this strike were added last Tuesday, Aug. 28. At the time of initiation, REVG was trading around $17.17, and the puts closed at $1.45.
In today's session, where the stock fell to a new record low of $12.72 earlier, those September 17.50 puts have crossed the tape at a volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of $3.33.