CHT Options Turn Bullish Ahead of Tuesday's Print

Chunghwa Telecom heads into its November 4 earnings release with options traders making one of their most bullish bets of the past year.

The call-side dominance in the options market is the clearest signal in the pre-earnings setup. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.11, nearly 1.7 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.41. That is the most one-sided lean toward calls in recent memory, a sharp contrast to the balanced-to-defensive posture that defined options positioning through September and most of October. The shift happened within the past week, the PCR sat above 0.63 as recently as October 27 before dropping abruptly. The stock itself has backed this up, rising about 7.5% over the past month to close at $48.99, with the weekly and daily moves both positive heading into the release.

Short interest is not part of the story here. Fewer than 1.2 million shares are short, a number too small relative to the float to exert meaningful pressure in either direction. Borrow costs are negligible at 0.32%, down sharply on the week, and availability is deep at over 900%, meaning the lending pool is barely touched. The short score of 37.6 sits comfortably in the lower half of the universe. None of this points to a crowded short that could amplify a move; it simply means bears have little presence in the name.

The ownership structure explains a great deal of this stock's character. Taiwan's Ministry of Transportation and Communications holds 35.3% of the company, cementing CHT as a state-majority-controlled utility in all but name. That anchor, combined with a dividend score ranking in the 95th percentile, draws institutional capital looking for stable yield rather than growth. BlackRock added 1.4 million shares as of September 30, and Vanguard added 3.8 million. The last four earnings prints produced muted reactions, with the most recent showing a 1-day move of under 1% and a five-day follow-through of roughly the same. The analyst record on the name is too dated to carry weight here; the most recent coverage data is several years old. Note that the available mean price target of $37.63 reflects stale data from 2020 and should not be read against the current $48.99 price.

The November 4 print is therefore less a test of whether the business is accelerating and more a question of whether the company's steady cash generation can justify the premium investors have added to the shares over the past month.