BOX Shares Hit By Downgrade

It's been a wild ride for BOX stock this month

Box Inc (NYSE:BOX) is trading down 5% at $16.21, after J.P. Morgan Securities downgraded the shares to "underweight" from "neutral," citing increased competition from Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google. The brokerage firm said a survey it ran showed many Box customers are considering changing to one of these two competitors, and many are at the very least likely to decrease spending in 2019.

This continues a volatile month for the cloud concern, as it's now testing the site of its hugebull gap from the start of September. The $18 region has acted as a technical ceiling, however, which sits just below the 200-day moving average, a trendline that blocked a rally attempt in May. BOX is down almost 31% in the past year.

Call buying has been extremely popular in the past 10 days at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX). Data shows 8.55 long calls for every put during this time, a ratio that ranks in the top quartile of its annual range, showing such a bullish reading is rather rare. Peak call open interest in the front-month October series sits at the 18-strike call.

As for prospective options traders, our Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 38% ranks in the 14th annual percentile, showing unusually low volatility expectations at the moment. In short, it could be a good time to buy premium.