Analyst Downgrades JetBlue Stock, Options Bears Respond

The shares of JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) are down 2.6% to trade at $13.17 at last check, after Deutsche Bank downgraded the equity to "hold" from "buy," and cut its price-target to $16 from $21. The firm noted it expects the low-cost airline to be stagnant as the industry recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The brokerage bunch was mostly optimistic towards JetBlue Airways stock coming into today, with six of the 10 analysts in question rating it a "buy" or better. What's more, the 12-month consensus target price of $15.20 is a 14.9% premium to the security's current levels. 

The equity had been charging higher prior to today's bear note, though its rally fell short at the $14.20 mark yesterday. The 60-day moving average has been keeping a tight lid on shares this month, though, and longer term JBLU remains down 33.4% year-over-year.  

At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), JBLU's 50-day put/call volume ratio of 0.33 sits higher than 97% of readings from the last 12 months. This indicates that though calls are still outnumbering long puts on an overall basis, the latter are getting picked up at a much quicker-than-usual pace. 

Today's options pits are brimming with bearish bets. So far, 25,000 puts have crossed the tape, which is nine times the volume that is typically seen at this point, as opposed to just 3,479 calls. Most popular is the May 12 put, followed by the 13 put in the same monthly series, with positions being opened at the latter.