Four big earnings reports land in the last days of October: Microsoft and Alphabet on Oct 28, Amazon and Intel on Oct 29, all after the close according to the companies' own announcements. Here is what the options market was pricing at Friday's close (Oct 23), how that number is computed, and how the same kind of number did last week. This is a description of option prices, not a forecast and not advice.
The number
Implied move = ATM straddle ÷ stock price. Take the strike nearest the stock price, add the call and put mid prices at that strike, and divide by the stock price. It is a market-implied range for the whole life of the option, and it carries no direction.
Closing mids on Oct 23, expiry Oct 30:
| Ticker | Strike | Straddle | Stock | Implied move |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSFT | 525 | $27.68 | $524.51 | ±5.3% |
| GOOGL | 320 | $19.38 | $320.21 | ±6.1% |
| AMZN | 247.5 | $19.45 | $248.00 | ±7.8% |
| INTC | 87 | $8.63 | $86.96 | ±9.9% |
Oct 30 is the first expiry that contains every reaction session (Oct 29 for MSFT and GOOGL, Oct 30 for AMZN and INTC). It also contains the days before the reports, so these are ranges to expiry, not the size of a one-day gap. The weekend and Monday-to-Wednesday option prices will move before the reports, so treat Friday's figures as a snapshot.
How the same kind of number did last week
I store the implied move from the app's earnings page and compare it with the first regular-session reaction after the report. Last week's five names:
| Ticker | Implied move | Actual reaction | Inside the range? |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFLX | ±9.3% | -5.3% | yes |
| NEE | ±3.3% | -0.7% | yes |
| IBM | ±7.4% | +0.3% | yes |
| LRCX | ±7.1% | -11.8% | no |
| TSLA | ±5.6% | -3.1% | yes |
Four of five were inside, and LRCX moved about 1.7 times its implied range. I would not read that as a hit rate, for three reasons:
- The implied move runs to the Oct 23 expiry while the reaction is a single session, so the periods differ.
- The saved timestamps are not verified to be before each report (the page labels all five "Pre-announcement timing unverified"), so these are reference comparisons, not logged forecasts.
- Five names is far too few to say anything about how reliable the options market is.
What I check before comparing any two numbers
- Which expiry does the implied move run to?
- Which session were the option prices taken from?
- Was it saved before the release, and can that be shown?
- Is the "actual" a close-to-close move over one regular session?
If one of those is unknown, the comparison gets labelled instead of counted.
Disclosure: I build SIGNUM HQ, a US-stock options app, and used AI to help draft this text. The figures come from the app's public API and earnings page. The app: https://www.signumhq.com/app?from=devto_1024
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