Shares of Joby Aviation Inc (NYSE:JOBY) soared this morning after the company announced its acquisition of fellow aviation name Blade Air Mobility's (BLDE) helicopter ride-share business for $125 million. Joby will leverage its emerging electric aircraft technology into the newly acquired network, which includes terminals in New York and New Jersey.
At last look, JOBY is up 16.8% to trade at $20.04, after earlier hitting an all-time high of $20.45. The equity is bouncing off the $16 level and now sports an impressive 146.2% year-to-date lead.
Despite its impressive gains, analysts are bearish on JOBY, with six of the nine in coverage sporting a "hold" or worse rating. Plus, the 66.16 million shares sold short make up 13% of the security's available float. Should some of this pessimism start to unwind, shares could surge even higher.
Options traders lean bearish on Joby Aviation stock, per its 10-day put/call volume ratio at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) that ranks higher than 94% of readings from the past year.
Drilling down to today's options activity, 53,000 calls and 37,000 puts have been placed already for JOBY, overall volume that's triple the intraday average amount. The most active contract is the weekly 8/8 20-strike call, where new positions are currently being bought to open.
It's also worth mentioning that the equity has tended to outperform volatility expectations in recent months, per its Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 83 out of 100.
