Occidental Petroleum Corp (NYSE:OXY) is near the bottom of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) today, after Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) shook up Wall Street with a $9.7 billion all-cash deal to buy OxyChem, the company's chemical business. Berkshire holds a 28.2% stake of Occidental as of the end of June.
OXY was last seen trading down 6.2% at $44.77, reversing premarket gains and now testing its 80-day moving average. The shares -- down 9.5% in 2025 and 16.4% year over year -- are in danger of breaching a channel of higher highs carved from their April 9, three-year low of $34.78.
Short-term traders have been extremely bearish. The stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 1.18 stands in the 96th percentile of readings from the past 12 months.
The skew leans more toward calls today. At last check, 118,000 options have changed hands, 82,000 of which are calls, volume that's five times the average intraday amount. The weekly 10/3 46-strike is the most popular contract today, where positions are being opened.
Premium is affordably priced at the moment, with equity's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 33% ranking in the 12th percentile of its annual range. A premium-selling strategy could be the move going forward, as OXY's Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) checks in at a 19 out of 100. This means the security has consistently realized lower volatility than its options have priced in.
