Visa will reportedly come under fire from the Department of Justice
Visa Inc (NYSE:V) stock is dragging the Dow today, last seen down 4.1% to trade at $276.82. Per a Bloomberg report, the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) antitrust division plans to file a monopoly lawsuit against the credit card giant’s debit card business. The DoJ plans to contend Visa penalizes customers trying to use competing services for payment processing.
This is poised to be Visa stock’s worst single-session decline since May 2022. The shares hit a Sept. 17, record high of $293.07, but are now testing their 30-day moving average. Year-over-year, V is still 18.6% higher. Heading into today, the equity’s 14-Day Relative Strength Index (RSI) sat all the way up at 70, on the cusp of “oversold” territory and indicating a short-term breather may have been imminent.
Options traders may have been eyeing the same signal. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), Visa stock’s 50-day put/call volume ratio of 2.24 ranks higher than all readings in the last year. Today is more of an even skew, with 28,000 calls changing hands and 27,000 puts, total options volume that is double the average intraday amount.
For those wanting to speculate on V’s next move, options might be a good idea. The security’s Schaeffer’s Volatility Index (SVI) of 16% stands in the 13th percentile of its annual range.
Plus, V’s Schaeffer’s Volatility Scorecard (SVS) sits at 17. This scorecard is used to identify which underlying stock options have historically had underpriced or overpriced options. Low SVS readings like this one point to Visa stock having consistently realized lower volatility than its options have priced in — making the stock a potential premium-selling candidate, rather than a premium-buying candidate.