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Luke Kawa

Opendoor shares up big again after call volumes set records for three straight sessions

The surge in online real estate company Opendoor Technologies, which has already doubled this week, is a flows story: traders are looking to get in on the ground floor of a potential turnaround.

There is not a fundamental catalyst pushing shares higher. Instead, there is a belief in the potential for a series of fundamental catalysts, a hope that all the negatives had been more than priced in when it traded below $1, and/or just the thought that others will keep piling in that’s inspiring a heck of a lot of retail zest for the stock.

That flows story in the options market has been monumental for the stock relative to its history. The stock has set records for daily call volumes traded in back-to-back-to-back sessions. More call options have traded in the first four days of this week (1.7 million) than the six months before that (1.4 million).

And the enthusiasm for the underlying stock looks to be continuing: it’s up more than 12% in premarket trading, and is in the top 50 for value traded among all US stocks ahead of the open, ahead of much, much larger companies like Exxon Mobil, Oracle, Berkshire Hathaway, Costco, and Pepsi.

Even if the stock goes nowhere on Friday, it would still be far and away its best week ever, and it’s not particularly close.

Read more: Hedge fund manager Eric Jackson, architect of the eye-popping rally in Opendoor, on why he thinks the online real estate company is the “next Carvana”

The stock is still more than 95% off its closing peak. But it’s also clearly in the market — and public — consciousness in a way it’s never been before.

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Bullish options flows boost Rivian

EV maker Rivian is up nearly 5% on Monday afternoon as bullish options flows lift the stock ahead of its third-quarter earnings, set to drop next week.

According to Bloomberg, Rivian call options traded outnumber put options more than 5 to 1, for a put/call ratio of less than 0.2 as of 2:38 p.m. ET. That’s significantly less than the 20-day average p/c of 0.4. More than 116,000 call options have changed hands, more than 60% above the full-day average over the past 20 days.

Rivian’s upcoming earnings will measure the automaker’s sales ahead of the expiration of the $7,500 EV tax credit. Since September, Rivian has performed two rounds of layoffs as it seeks to cut costs amid the end of regulatory credits and ahead of next year’s lower-cost SUV launch.

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Palantir inks defense deal with Poland, touches new intraday high

Palantir Technologies touched a new intraday high of $192.83 early Monday, as the company rode the China trade truce rally in AI tech stocks and retail favorites.

Palantir also signed a new deal to supply the government of Poland with data, AI, and cybersecurity software, according to Bloomberg.

Polish Minister of Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz and Palantir Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp signed the letter of intent on the deal, about which few details were released. Polish officials did signal that they were interested in Palantir software systems for “battlefield management” and logistics. Up more than 150% this year, Palantir reports Q3 earnings on November 3.

Polish Minister of Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz and Palantir Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp signed the letter of intent on the deal, about which few details were released. Polish officials did signal that they were interested in Palantir software systems for “battlefield management” and logistics. Up more than 150% this year, Palantir reports Q3 earnings on November 3.

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Intellia tanks as it pauses late-stage CRISPR gene-editing trials after one patient was hospitalized

Intellia dropped sharply on Monday after it announced that it’s pausing two late-stage CRISPR gene-editing trials because one patient was hospitalized with liver damage.

Intellia had also disclosed in May that a patient had experienced elevated liver enzymes. The news is a major setback for the company, which currently has no products on the market and is working on a one-time treatment for heart and nerve conditions.

The news dragged down other companies working on CRISPR treatments, including Beam Therapeutics Inc, Crispr Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, and Prime Medicine.

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Gold craters as retail traders pull money from commodity ETFs

As its fierce rally begins to fade, it looks like retail traders are waving au revoir to gold.

JPMorgan strategist Arun Jain noted that retail traders have pulled about $120 million from commodity ETFs as of 11 a.m. ET on Monday, a level that stands in the 0.4th percentile relative to its one-year average. The SPDR Gold Shares ETF is down 2.8% as of 11:53 a.m. ET after suffering its worst loss since April 2013 last Tuesday. That day, retail had pulled just $50 million from commodity ETFs by 11 a.m.

The five-session average daily flows into the product hit an all-time high of nearly $1.1 billion last Monday as gold and silver had effectively become the new meme stocks, displaying strong momentum and heavy options activity.

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POET Technologies tumbles after announcing $150 million share offering to two new fundamental investment managers

POET Technologies is tumbling after announcing that it’s selling 20.7 million shares to raise approximately $150 million in an oversubscribed registered direct offering “by two new fundamental investors.”

Its prior $75 million raise through the sale of stock and warrants earlier this month is widely presumed to have been to MMCAP International, which was already its largest shareholder.

“We’ve been very pleased with the level of interest in POET by investors of all types — retail, institutional,” POET Executive Chairman and CEO Dr. Suresh Venkatesan recently told Sherwood News, saying that the company’s focus this year is to make sure that “the technology that we’re developing is truly manufacturable at scale and at wafer scale.”

The optical communications company has enjoyed elevated interest from retail investors recently as the AI boom raises the demand for data to be transferred as quickly and efficiently as possible. Last week, POET announced a $5 million order for its optical engines from a “leading systems integrator.”

Per the press release, POET “intends to use the net proceeds from this investment for corporate development, including targeted acquisitions, scaling up of R&D, acceleration of the light source business, expanding operations, and general working capital.”

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