VJET – voxeljet AG – Shares in the maker of 3D printers have roughly halved this week, dropping as much as 54% from Monday’s intraday high of $70.00 down to a low of $32.26 this morning. The company reported third-quarter earnings, the first quarterly report since becoming a public company in October, after the closing bell last Thursday. Shares ended higher last week and continued to climb on Monday, but the stock reversed course on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, with double-digit percentage losses in each of the prior two trading sessions. VJET shares dropped another 18% today to $32.26 on a report from Citron Research.
The stock is off the lowest levels of the session, down 11% at $34.82 as of 10:55 a.m. EST. Options volume on voxeljet is nearly four times the stock’s average daily volume just 90 minutes into the trading day, with volume approaching 9,200 contracts as of the time of this writing. Some options traders appear to be positioning for the price of the underlying to pullback sharply from here during the next four weeks. Around 530 of the Dec $20 strike puts, the lowest available striking price in the front month, changed hands in the early going against zero open interest. It looks like most of the volume was purchased for an average premium of $0.87 each. Traders long the $20 puts stand ready to profit at expiration next month in the event that VJET shares drop another 45% from the current price of $34.82 to breach an average breakeven point and new record low of $19.13. Of course, shares need not drop all the way to $19.13 in order for the trade to be profitable prior to expiration.
