Novavax Shares Fall On Heavy Options Volume Following COVID Vaccine Approval By EU

In what should have been good news for the stock, Novavax Inc NVAX is down over 6% on the day on heavy volumes with over 10 million shares traded (double the 10 day average) and over 57,000 options traded.

This is in spite of the fact the stock received conditional approval in Europe for its COVID-19 vaccine.

See also: Novavax's COVID-19 Vaccine Scores Conditional Approval in Europe

What Happened: Novavax has been working on its approval for usage in several countries like Canada and the EU, which would be a boon for sales (and potentially the stock price) as the EU has ordered up to 100 million doses of the Novavax vaccine with an option for 100 million more. The omicron variant has also helped Novavax as countries look for alternate vaccines to fight against new variants.

Option traders have been rather bullish on the stock, trading over 37,000 calls today versus approximately 20,000 puts (image below).

Why It Matters: The lions share of option flows today have been concentrated on short-dated strikes like the Dec. 23 and Dec. 31 expiries. Hence, most of these are short term speculative plays.

However, there is a decent concentration of flows for the Jan. 21 expiry with the largest strike by volume being the $250 strike (image below).


What's Next: Looking at the Jan. 21 option chain, the $250 strike has the largest forward-looking strike by volume, which suggests some option traders are targeting a move up to $250 by the monthly expiry.

It's also important to note the $250 strike has solid open interest there, the most by any strike on this expiry for calls and puts. This open interest could pull the price up to that level should the stock remain elevated and supported above $200. 

If the omicron variant continues to cause issues globally, Novavax could see further bullish price action and a move up to $250.

On the other hand, if the stock closes below $200 this week, then traders could see prices decline further down to the $175/$180 strikes before finding support.

Related Link: South African Study Shows Omicron Variant Could Escape Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Protection