3M Company (MMM) Buys Lingualcare

3M Company announced this morning that it has agreed to buy Lingualcare, an orthodontic technology and services company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. On the news, MMM has added about 0.6% and tagged a new multi-year high. Technically, the shares have been in rally mode since mid-March, tacking on more than 26% on the support of their 10-week and 20-week moving averages.

On the sentiment front, investors have taken not of MMM's strength. Options players have only been more bullish 16% of the time during the past year, as the stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.99 indicates. Meanwhile, analysts have doled out 5 "buys," 1 "hold," and no "sells." However, with the shares putting in a strong technical performance, the contrarian takeaway from these elevated bullish indicators is a bit muted. Traders should keep an eye on that uptrend, though.