NWL and 24 Other Stocks to Avoid Next Week

NWL is staring up at stiff resistance to boot

Yesterday, we chronicled the best S&P 500 stocks to own during Memorial Day week, historically. Now, Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White is back to give us the worst 25 stocks to own during the holiday-shortened week. Leading the charge is Newell Co (NASDAQ:NWL), boasting particularly lackluster Memorial Day week returns in the last 10 years, according to White's data.

More specifically, looking back over the last decade, Newell stock has suffered an average Memorial Day week loss of 4.6%, with only two out of 10 returns positive. That's good for worst on the list, with second place going to building stock Lennar (LEN), with a 4.3% average loss.

NWL is down 33.8% in 2020, with recent breakouts stymied by the 40-day moving average. Since bottoming at $10.44 on March 23, the shares have spent a better part of the last three months consolidating between the $11 and $14 levels. Given this recent sideways price action, it's no surprise that seven out of nine analysts dole out tepid "hold" ratings.

In the options pits though, the equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.51 sits lower than all but 8% of other readings from the past year. This suggests short-term option players have rarely been more call-biased in the past 12 months. Digging deeper, the June 15 call is home to the largest increase in open interest in the last 10 days.

Regardless of motive, now certainly looks like an attractive time to speculate on Newell's next move with options. The equity's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 45% sits in the 13th percentile of its annual range. This means the options market is pricing in relatively low volatility expectations at the moment.