More pain possible for Fitbit shareholders as lockup expires

By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fitbit Inc's (NYSE: FIT) stock, already at a record low, could take another hit on Wednesday, when insiders and employees will be allowed to sell some 127.3 million shares that had been locked up.

Those additional shares coming to market - roughly 60 percent of the total number of shares currently outstanding - could aggravate volatility for the wearable fitness device maker's shares, which touched an all-time low of $13.99 on Tuesday.

"The stock is in a steep downtrend and negativity begets more negativity on Wall Street," said John Gardner, managing member at Aptus Capital Advisors LLC in Fairhope, Alabama.

"Fitbit would be on our radar once price tells us that this negative downtrend is over. Currently, that's not the case," he said.

The company's shares have been under pressure for months. The recent launch of its "Fitbit Blaze" smartwatch failed to revive the shares as initial reviews highlighted the device's lack of support for third-party apps such as Apple Inc's (NASDAQ: AAPL) Apple Watch.

Last month the shares fell below the company's June IPO price of $20.

Traders' expectations of a large near-term move in Fitbit's shares have never been higher. The stock's 30-day implied volatility, a gauge of the risk of large move in the shares, hit a record high of 125 percent on Tuesday, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.

Meanwhile, bets against the stock are at a record high. As of Jan. 15, some 29.7 million of the company's shares, or 14.1 percent of the outstanding shares, were sold short, according to exchange data.

(Editing by Linda Stern and Matthew Lewis)

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