Amazon Stock Higher After Company Chooses Headquarters Locations

Amazon has struggled to recover from its late-October lows

Shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) are slightly higher in early trading, after a report out of the Wall Street Journal stated the e-tailer has selected New York City and Northern Virginia as locations for its next two headquarters. The company is expected to make an announcement of the conclusion to its 14-month search by the end of today. In response, the FAANG stock is up 0.5%, at $1,645 in pre-market trading.

AMZN has been working to recover from its late-October post-earnings plunge, which exacerbated its already weak technical performance ahead of the event. Long-term, the security had been moving higher with the help of its 40-day moving average, and year-to-date remains up nearly 40%.

Looking toward options data, the FAANG concern's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) comes in at 0.98, which ranks in the low 17th annual percentile. In other words, options traders have seemingly been upbeat, with data showing a higher-than-normal preference for near-term calls over puts.

Either way, Amazon has been a strong target for anyone buying premium. This is per the stock's Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 98 out of a possible 100, which indicates that AMZN has tended to make outsized moves over the past year, relative to what the options market has priced in.