7 Rallying Large Caps With Bearish Options Sentiment

Many investors view the put/call ratio as a contrarian indicator – when it reaches extreme levels, it may indicate that a turnaround is imminent.

We ran a screen on large-cap companies rallying above their 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages. We screened this universe for companies seeing significant increases in their put/call ratio over the last ten trading days.

Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the top six stocks mentioned below. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.

Your browser does not support iframes.

We also created a price-weighted index of the stocks mentioned below, and monitored the performance of the list relative to the S&P 500 index over the last month. To access a complete analysis of this list's recent performance, click here.



List sorted by increase in put/call ratio.

1. Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. (CHT): Telecom Services Industry. Market cap of $33.61B. The stock is currently trading at 1.37% above its 20-Day SMA, 6.62% above its 50-Day SMA, and 24.16% above its 200-Day SMA. Put/call ratio has increased 109.12% over the last ten trading days (from 10.42 to 21.79). Offers a good dividend, and appears to have good liquidity to back it up--dividend yield at 5.49%, current ratio at 2.22, and quick ratio at 2.11. The stock has gained 83.92% over the last year.

2. NTT DOCOMO, Inc. (DCM): Wireless Communications Industry. Market cap of $80.93B. The stock is currently trading at 2.29% above its 20-Day SMA, 2.85% above its 50-Day SMA, and 4.90% above its 200-Day SMA. Put/call ratio has increased 56.25% over the last ten trading days (from 0.64 to 1.00). The stock has gained 16.53% over the last year.

3. Noble Energy, Inc. (NBL): Independent Oil & Gas Industry. Market cap of $17.59B. The stock is currently trading at 6.52% above its 20-Day SMA, 10.65% above its 50-Day SMA, and 13.33% above its 200-Day SMA. Put/call ratio has increased 37.29% over the last ten trading days (from 0.59 to 0.81). The stock has had a good month, gaining 11.56%.

4. Halliburton Company (HAL): Oil & Gas Equipment & Services Industry. Market cap of $50.33B. The stock is currently trading at 0.33% above its 20-Day SMA, 7.60% above its 50-Day SMA, and 22.58% above its 200-Day SMA. Put/call ratio has increased 32.31% over the last ten trading days (from 0.65 to 0.86). The stock has gained 84.84% over the last year.

5. ACE Limited (ACE): Property & Casualty Insurance Industry. Market cap of $22.60B. The stock is currently trading at 1.08% above its 20-Day SMA, 0.46% above its 50-Day SMA, and 5.19% above its 200-Day SMA. Put/call ratio has increased 30.0% over the last ten trading days (from 0.50 to 0.65). The stock has gained 28.96% over the last year.

6. Cerner Corporation (CERN): Healthcare Information Services Industry. Market cap of $11.18B. The stock is currently trading at 4.71% above its 20-Day SMA, 8.64% above its 50-Day SMA, and 25.71% above its 200-Day SMA. Put/call ratio has increased 27.72% over the last ten trading days (from 1.01 to 1.29). The stock is a short squeeze candidate, with a short float at 11.47% (equivalent to 14.36 days of average volume). The stock has gained 71.72% over the last year.

7. Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG): Medical Appliances & Equipment Industry. Market cap of $15.65B. The stock is currently trading at 3.53% above its 20-Day SMA, 9.10% above its 50-Day SMA, and 22.70% above its 200-Day SMA. Put/call ratio has increased 25.0% over the last ten trading days (from 0.80 to 1.00). The stock has gained 21.98% over the last year.

Options data sourced from Schaeffer’s, all other data sourced from Finviz.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.