Baidu (BIDU) Option Traders Set for Earnings Boost

Investors of Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) have kept the share prices range bound ahead of the company's fiscal second quarter earnings announcement. At first glance, it appears option traders are positioned for a positive move, as the number of call options outweighs the number of puts in the open interest. The unusual option activity could create a strong downward trend in the price action if BIDU delivers a negative earnings surprise.

Call option numbers are growing in the open interest for BIDU, and option premiums are unusually high right now. Trading volumes indicate that traders have been buying calls and selling puts in anticipation of a favorable earnings report. Unwinding these bets could place unexpected downward pressure on the share price of BIDU.

Correctly predicting the direction a stock will move after earnings is challenging. However, a juxtaposition between the stock's option activity and price action shows that, if BIDU delivers a negative report, the company's share price could tumble, moving further below its 20-day moving average after the announcement. This could happen because options are priced for an upwards move, but unforeseen poor news could catch traders by surprise and create a rapid fall in share price.

A comparison between the details of both stock price and option behavior can grant chart watchers valuable insight; however, it is necessary to understand the context in which this price behavior took place. The chart below depicts the price action for the BIDU share price as of Wednesday, Aug. 11. This created the setup leading into the earnings report.

Current Trends

Over the past month, the trend for BIDU stock has the share price remaining below the 20-day moving average and dropping to the lower extremes of the volatility range in late July before slightly recovering and closing just below the moving average. In this time period, it's notable that the lowest BIDU share price was roughly $153 in late July, whereas the highest share price was over $187 in mid-July. The price closed in the middle region depicted by the technical studies on this chart. 

The studies are formed by 20-day Keltner Channel indicators. These depict price levels that represent a multiple of the Average True Range (ATR) for the stock. This array helps to highlight the way the price has risen closer to the 20-day moving average in the week before earnings. This price move from BIDU shares implies that investors' confidence is growing as the earnings report approaches.

In this context where the price trend for BIDU has recently risen closer to its 20-day moving average, chart watchers can recognize that traders and investors are expressing growing confidence going into earnings. It's notable that, in the week before earnings, BIDU's share price has found a stable level, just below the 20-day moving average. That makes it important for chart watchers to determine whether the move is reflecting investors' expectations for favorable earnings or not.

Option trading details can provide chart watchers with additional context to help them form an opinion about investor expectations. Recently, option traders are favoring calls over puts by a noticeable margin. On Tuesday, there were over 15,000 calls traded opposed to over 7,000 puts. Normally, this volume indicates that traders are feeling bullish toward the earnings report.

Trading Activity

Option traders recognize that BIDU shares are in a below average range and have priced their options as a bet that the stock will close within one of the two boxes depicted in the chart between today and Aug. 20, the Friday after the earnings report is released. The green-framed box represents the pricing that call option sellers are offering. It implies a 33% probability that BIDU shares will close inside this range by the end of the week if prices go higher. The red box represents the pricing for put options with a 35% chance if prices go lower on the announcement. 

It is necessary to note that the open interest featured over 404,000 calls compared to over 374,000 puts, demonstrating the bias that option buyers had, as traders favored calls over puts. It is notable that option trading on Tuesday favored calls over 2-to-1, skewing the open interest numbers even further in favor of call options. However, because the call box and put box are relatively equal in size, it tells us that the growing percentage of call options has only mildly skewed expectations higher. A far more complacent outlook is implied.

The purple lines on the chart are generated by a 10-day Keltner Channel study set at four times the ATR. This measure tends to create highly correlated regions of strong support and resistance in the price action. These regions show up when the channel lines make a noticeable turn within the previous three months.

The levels that the turns mark are annotated in the chart below. What is notable in this chart is that the call and put pricing are in such a close range with plenty of space to run either way, but with slightly more room to the upside. This suggests that option buyers don't have a strong conviction about how the company will report, even though recent call volumes outweigh put volume. Although investors and option traders do not expect it, a surprising report would push prices dramatically higher or lower.

These support and resistance levels show a large range of support and resistance for prices. As a result, it is possible that any news, surprisingly bad or good, will catch investors by surprise and could generate an unusually large move. After the previous earnings announcement, BIDU shares rose less than 1% the day after earnings and continued to rise the following week. Investors may be expecting a similar positive move in the price after this announcement. With plenty of room in the volatility range, share prices could rise or fall more than expected.

Market Impact

BIDU is in the top 10 of China stocks by market cap. Considering all the regulatory issues with China as of late, BIDU's earnings could move indexes directly. No matter what the report says, it's likely to have an effect on stocks in the communications sector. A positive report could lift other stocks in the sector such as NetEase, Inc. (NTES), Snap Inc. (SNAP), or Twitter, Inc. (TWTR). It could also affect exchange traded funds (ETFs) such as Invesco's QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) or the Global X MSCI China Communication Services ETF (CHIC).