Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY: sentiment, chart, options) joined a bevy of companies that have already announce layoffs this year. The pharmaceutical giant plans to slash its workforce by another 10% through 2010 after announcing similar plans last December. Last December, the drugmaker said it would cut about 10% of its workforce when it had about 43,000 employees. The company expects to cut 800 jobs by the end of the month, according to reports.

Technically speaking, the security has been in an uptrend since hitting a low in October of $16, resulting in a rally of more than 40%. In fact, the shares are currently poised to close the month above their 10-month trendline for the first time since November 2007. However, the equity is still facing resistance at its declining 20-month trendline near the 24.50 level.

Meanwhile, options players are extremely skeptical of the shares. The Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio for BMY stands at 0.60, which is higher than 81% of all those taken during the past 52 weeks. In other words, options players have been more pessimistically aligned toward the stock just 19% of the time during the past year.