Healthcare company athenahealth, Inc (NASDAQ:ATHN) and industrial conglomerate General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) are in the news today, after former GE CEO Jeff Immelt was named chair of athenahealth's board of directors. Immet also purchased $1 million in ATHN common stock at the open. Below, we'll take a closer look at how ATHN and GE stocks are reacting.
ATHN stock is down 1.3% to trade at $132.30 this morning. Although the equity has added 18% in the last 52 weeks, it remains a far cry from its July 21 annual high of $158.66 annual high. While the shares briefly broke through the $140 mark last week -- a 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of their 2017 plunge -- they have since pulled back to trade below familiar resistance in the $136 region.
Near-term options traders are unusually put-skewed toward the stock. For instance, our Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) for ATHN comes in at 2.01, and ranks in the 91st percentile of its annual range.
General Electric stock is down 1.5% to trade at $15.01, after Deutsche Bank issued a price-target cut to $13 from $15 -- territory not seen since July 2009. The follows last week's warning from the brokerage firm that the struggling blue-chip stock could be booted from the Dow.
GE has shed 49% year-over-year, and touched a six-year low of $14.71 yesterday. What's more, the equity underperformed the broader S&P 500 Index (SPX) by 28 percentage points during the past three months, and is the worst Dow stock so far this year.
Not surprisingly, the mood in the options pits is distinctly bearish. Data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows the stock's 10-day put/call volume ratio at 0.72 ranks in the 80th percentile of its annual range. This suggests that puts have been bought relative to calls at a faster-than-usual clip during the past two weeks.