What Are Whales Doing With Booking Holdings

Someone with a lot of money to spend has taken a bearish stance on Booking Holdings BKNG.

And retail traders should know.

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

Whether this is an institution or just a wealthy individual, we don't know. But when something this big happens with BKNG, it often means somebody knows something is about to happen.

So how do we know what this whale just did?

Today, Benzinga's options scanner spotted 51 uncommon options trades for Booking Holdings.

This isn't normal.

The overall sentiment of these big-money traders is split between 33% bullish and 66%, bearish.

Out of all of the special options we uncovered, 8 are puts, for a total amount of $374,675, and 43 are calls, for a total amount of $3,200,775.

What's The Price Target?

Taking into account the Volume and Open Interest on these contracts, it appears that whales have been targeting a price range from $960.0 to $3100.0 for Booking Holdings over the last 3 months.

Volume & Open Interest Development

Looking at the volume and open interest is an insightful way to conduct due diligence on a stock.

This data can help you track the liquidity and interest for Booking Holdings's options for a given strike price.

Below, we can observe the evolution of the volume and open interest of calls and puts, respectively, for all of Booking Holdings's whale activity within a strike price range from $960.0 to $3100.0 in the last 30 days.

Booking Holdings Option Volume And Open Interest Over Last 30 Days

Biggest Options Spotted:

Where Is Booking Holdings Standing Right Now?

• With a volume of 158,941, the price of BKNG is up 4.02% at $2368.32.
• RSI indicators hint that the underlying stock may be approaching overbought.
• Next earnings are expected to be released in 36 days.

What The Experts Say On Booking Holdings:

• Jefferies has decided to maintain their Buy rating on Booking Holdings, which currently sits at a price target of $2800.
• Ascendiant Capital has decided to maintain their Buy rating on Booking Holdings, which currently sits at a price target of $2850.
• Jefferies has decided to maintain their Buy rating on Booking Holdings, which currently sits at a price target of $2900.
• Evercore ISI Group upgraded its action to Outperform with a price target of $2900
• Deutsche Bank downgraded its action to Buy with a price target of $2512

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.