Today, underwear concern Hanesbrands Inc. (HBI: sentiment, chart, options) received both a bearish downgrade and a bullish reiteration. Specifically, Matrix Research downgraded the shares from "hold" to "sell," and CL King reiterated its "strong buy" recommendation.

This morning, HBI tagged a fresh all-time low of $8.54, but the stock closed up 6.4%. Despite the upward bounce today, the stock is quite an underperformer, lagging the S&P 500 Index (SPX) by 35% during the past 40 days, and logging a 67% loss during the past 52 weeks.

In spite of the stock's performance, Thomson Financial lists HBI's average 12-month price target at $23.33, a premium of 173% to today's low. With Zacks reporting 4 "strong buys," the security could be due for some downgrades and price-target revisions in the near future, pressuring it even lower.

In parity with analysts, short-term option players are optimistic. The equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) is currently docked at 0.90, which indicates that calls outnumber their bullish counterparts among options slated to expire in less than 3 months. What's more, this ratio is lower than almost one-third of all other readings taken during the past year, meaning that short-term option players have rarely been more optimistically aligned.

However, this sentiment may be shifting. During the past 10 trading days on the International Securities Exchange (ISE), investors have purchased 11.45 puts for every call. This reading points to investors' recent affinity for bearish bets.

In conclusion, if analysts and/or investors begin to fear getting caught with their pants down, the stock could slip more.