Citron Short Call Dings Netflix Stock
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) hit a record high on Friday, but today the shares are trading 2.1% lower at $324.62, after Citron Research in a tweet said "the stock can be shorted back to $300. Content spend unsustainable long term." While this price target represents a nearly 8% pullback from current levels, NFLX was trading below $300 as recently as last Monday.
Short interest on Netflix is actually historically low at the moment, declining 10.5% in the last two reporting periods alone. As it stands now, less than 5% of the total float is controlled by short sellers, equating to two times the security's average daily trading volume.
There are plenty of skeptics in the analyst community, though. Fourteen of the 35 covering brokerage firms have "hold" or "sell" ratings on NFLX, and the average 12-month price target sits all the way down at $275.26.
Meanwhile, options volume is accelerated today, with puts and calls both trading at 1.6 times the expected rate. The March 330 call is seeing the most volume so far, though some sell-to-open activity could be taking place here. Close behind are the March 310 and 325 puts.