AST SpaceMobile Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTS) attracted moderately bullish options activity on Monday May 18, with shares advancing 3.78% to close at $86.83 as the satellite-to-phone company extended a four-day winning streak and continued its recovery from a post-earnings trough that had sent the stock to multi-month lows earlier in the month.
Options volume on the session was roughly in line with average, with approximately 27,000 contracts traded and calls leading puts for a put/call ratio of 0.54, compared to the typical level near 0.61, indicating a modestly elevated call bias consistent with investors positioned for further near-term upside.
Implied volatility rose on the day, with IV30 higher by approximately 5.2 points and put/call skew steepening, suggesting that while the directional tilt leaned bullish, some participants were simultaneously adding downside protection against the stock’s notoriously wide daily trading ranges.
The session’s 9.94% intraday swing from a low of $81.83 to a high of $89.96 captured exactly the kind of volatility that makes ASTS simultaneously compelling and hazardous for shorter-term traders.
ASTS is up approximately 26.89% over the prior two weeks and has regained substantial ground since the post-Q1 earnings selloff on May 12, when the stock fell 13% after the company missed revenue estimates, reporting $14.7 million against analyst expectations of approximately $39 million.
The miss was significant, but management’s response at the earnings call was firm: the full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $150 million to $200 million was reaffirmed, sequential growth was pledged for Q2, and the company underlined its $3.5 billion cash position and its ambition to have 45 satellites in orbit by year end.
The broader investment narrative supporting ASTS has strengthened in recent sessions following the announcement of a proposed joint venture between AT&T (NYSE: T), T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS), and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) to address direct-to-device coverage gaps, a development that Roth Capital described as a “Tier 1 joint venture win” for AST SpaceMobile, raising its price target to $108.
B. Riley raised its ASTS price target to $85 from $75, while BofA lowered its target modestly to $95 from $100 and UBS trimmed its target to $80 from $85, all maintaining Neutral ratings, reflecting a consensus that acknowledges ASTS’s long-term potential while noting the execution risk and revenue timing uncertainty that make a more bullish stance difficult to justify at present.
The stock’s 52-week range runs from $22.47 to $129.89, giving it one of the widest annual trading bands of any large-cap technology stock, and its current level near $86 sits near the middle of that range and well below its January 2026 all-time high of $129.89.
The average 12-month analyst price target of approximately $83.90 across ten analysts sits modestly below current trading levels, suggesting the consensus is not yet fully pricing in the optimism reflected in Monday’s options flow, and that the market is waiting for revenue execution rather than narrative momentum to drive the next sustained leg higher.
