Instacart owner Maplebear Inc (NASDAQ:CART) stock is down 4.4% to trade at $43.07, despite announcing the company would be implementing Meta's personal AI agent Muse for in-app use. Separately, Instacart announced a partnership with Dollar General (DG) to provide same-day delivery this fall.
CART was higher premarket, however, the stock has shifted direction at the open and is now trading at two-month lows. The shares have shed 18.2% since its Sept. 3 52-week high and now have a 14-Day Relative Strength Index (RSI) at 31, on the cusp of "oversold" territory.
Despite today's bearish sentiment, calls have been quite popular recently. CART sports a 50-day call/put volume ratio of 3.12 on the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX). This ratio stands higher than 97% of all other readings from the past year, hinting at a much healthier-than-usual appetite for bearish bets over bullish of late.
Options are attractively priced at the moment too. Instacart's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 39% stands higher than just 15% of all other readings from the past year, implying that near-term option traders are pricing in relatively low volatility expectations.
Instacart tends to underperform options traders' volatility expectations, per its Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 12 out of 100. This makes premium-selling an intriguing move going forward.
