Decoding Shopify's Options Activity: What's the Big Picture?

Investors with a lot of money to spend have taken a bearish stance on Shopify SHOP.

And retail traders should know.

We noticed this today when the trades showed up on publicly available options history that we track here at Benzinga.

Whether these are institutions or just wealthy individuals, we don't know. But when something this big happens with SHOP, it often means somebody knows something is about to happen.

So how do we know what these investors just did?

Today, Benzinga's options scanner spotted 12 uncommon options trades for Shopify.

This isn't normal.

The overall sentiment of these big-money traders is split between 25% bullish and 75%, bearish.

Out of all of the special options we uncovered, 6 are puts, for a total amount of $296,057, and 6 are calls, for a total amount of $582,185.

What's The Price Target?

Analyzing the Volume and Open Interest in these contracts, it seems that the big players have been eyeing a price window from $35.0 to $80.0 for Shopify during the past quarter.

Analyzing Volume & Open Interest

In terms of liquidity and interest, the mean open interest for Shopify options trades today is 4811.6 with a total volume of 2,896.00.

In the following chart, we are able to follow the development of volume and open interest of call and put options for Shopify's big money trades within a strike price range of $35.0 to $80.0 over the last 30 days.

Shopify Option Volume And Open Interest Over Last 30 Days

Biggest Options Spotted:

About Shopify

Shopify offers an e-commerce platform primarily to small and medium-size businesses. The firm has two segments. The subscription solutions segment allows Shopify merchants to conduct e-commerce on a variety of platforms, including the company's website, physical stores, pop-up stores, kiosks, social networks (Facebook), and Amazon. The merchant solutions segment offers add-on products for the platform that facilitate e-commerce and include Shopify Payments, Shopify Shipping, and Shopify Capital.

Having examined the options trading patterns of Shopify, our attention now turns directly to the company. This shift allows us to delve into its present market position and performance

Shopify's Current Market Status

• Trading volume stands at 3,271,876, with SHOP's price down by -1.41%, positioned at $66.39.
• RSI indicators show the stock to be may be approaching overbought.
• Earnings announcement expected in 22 days.

What Analysts Are Saying About Shopify

3 market experts have recently issued ratings for this stock, with a consensus target price of $81.66666666666667.

• An analyst from Citigroup has decided to maintain their Buy rating on Shopify, which currently sits at a price target of $96.
• Showing optimism, an analyst from Evercore ISI Group upgrades its rating to Outperform with a revised price target of $75.
• An analyst from JP Morgan downgraded its action to Overweight with a price target of $74.

Options are a riskier asset compared to just trading the stock, but they have higher profit potential. Serious options traders manage this risk by educating themselves daily, scaling in and out of trades, following more than one indicator, and following the markets closely.

If you want to stay updated on the latest options trades for Shopify, Benzinga Pro gives you real-time options trades alerts.