Vitamin Shoppe Stock Drops Despite CBD Expansion

VSI fell to a record low last Thursday

Despite trading higher in after-hours, shares of Vitamin Shoppe Inc (NYSE:VSI) are down 3.6% to trade at $3.74 this morning -- afterpivoting lower at the open -- and earlier touching a fresh annual low of $3.68. The nutritional supplement retailer becomes the latest to dabble in cannabidiol (CBD) after announcing it was expanding its CBD hemp extract offerings to 390 stores and 31 states.

Heading into today, the stock's 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) stood yesterday at 19 -- deep into oversold territory. Vitamin Shoppe stock's previous low of $3.79 came last Thursday, in the middle of what was a six-day losing streak. Since skimming $8 in late March, VSI carved out a channel of lower lows, guided by its descending 10-day moving average.

Short sellers have been flocking to the specialty retailer. Short interest increased by 20.7% in the most recent reporting period to 5.70 million shares, the most since June. This accounts for a whopping 29.2% of the equity's total available float, and 10.1 times the average daily trading volume.

There's also pessimism among analysts and options traders. Both brokerages in coverage rate the stock a "hold" or "strong sell," while the security's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 14.61 ranks 2 percentage points from an annual high. This meansshort-term speculators haven't been more put-heavy in the past year, when looking at open interest among options expiring within three months.