In this morning's Opening View, Andrea and Joe reported that Hess Corp. (HES: sentiment, chart, options) is cutting its 2009 capital spending to $3.2 billion in 2009 from $4.4 billion in 2008, a reduction of $1.2 billion, or 27%. Approximately $3.1 billion is targeted for exploration and production, with $1.4 billion for production, $900 million for developments and $800 million for exploration.

The company commented that "The uncertain economic environment has prompted us to size our 2009 capital and exploratory program in a way that maintains our financial strength and protects our growth options."

The shares of HES aren't down as one might expect. No, the security is actually up more than 7% this afternoon, boosted by strength in the price of crude oil, which has also rallied more than 7% today. Yet, despite today's jump in the shares, the equity still has a significant way to go before it takes out multiple layers of trendline resistance that resides overhead. In particular, the stock has been capped by its 10-week moving average on a closing basis since the beginning of July.

Meanwhile, investors are extremely smitten with the shares. The Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio for HES stands at 0.53, as call open interest nearly doubles put open interest among near-term options. This reading is also lower than 91% of all those taken during the past 52 weeks. In addition, the International Securities Exchange (ISE) reports that during the past 10 trading sessions, an average of 2.6 calls has been bought to open for every 1 put purchased to open. This preference for calls on a downtrending stock has bearish implications from a contrarian perspective.

For a closer look at the security, check out my video on the shares. Just click here.