Comcast Corp (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is trading 8.9% higher at $25.23 this morning, after news broke that the media conglomerate will spinoff its NBCUniversal and Sky units into separate companies. Share repurchases will be paused during the time of the separation. The move comes as media companies look to compete with heavy-duty streaming platforms like Netflix (NFLX) and Paramount Skydance (PSKY).
CMCSA has been facing a downward trajectory for several years, unable to recover from its climb to its early August 2023 highs. Despite today's pop the equity is off 23% year-over-year, with the shares tapping a more than 12-year low of $22.13 just last week.
Despite its long-term underperformance, options traders have remained extremely bullish. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), Comcast stock's 50-day call/put volume ratio of 2.14 ranks in the 74th annual percentile. This sentiment is echoed by the stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.45, which ranks higher than just 20% of readings from the past year.
Options traders are circling right out of the gate, with 52,000 calls and 14,000 puts trading in the first 30 minutes. This comes in at 12 times the average daily rate, with the July 25 call and December 40 call seeing the most action.
Even further, the stock sports a Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 87 out of 100. This suggests the equity has consistently realized higher-than-expected volatility over the past 12 months.
