How to Read an Earnings Implied Move: Roblox, Pinterest, Coinbase and Rivian as Examples

Why does every website show a different "implied move" for the same stock? Four earnings reports on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026 make a handy test case. Roblox, Pinterest, Coinbase and Rivian are all scheduled to report after the close.

An implied move is the swing in a stock's price that option prices suggest around an event. This article was written before the results and does not predict them.

The straddle shortcut

One common method, described by EarningsWatcher, uses the options expiring just after the report:

• Pick the strike (the preset price an option is based on) closest to the current share price.
• Add the prices of the call and the put at that strike. Together they form a straddle.
• Divide that total by the share price.

Here is a purely hypothetical example. If a $200 stock has a straddle priced at $14, the implied move is $14 divided by $200, or 7%.

Some traders scale the straddle by a factor such as 0.85, a rule of thumb described by tastylive, though the reason for that factor is not explained there. Either way, the result describes the size of the expected swing, not whether it is up or down.

Why the numbers differ

On Oct. 28, EarningsWatcher listed implied moves of about:

• Roblox: 14.4%
• Pinterest: 12.7%
• Coinbase: 8.7%
• Rivian: 11.9%

Its Oct. 27 weekly table had shown somewhat different figures for some of them, such as 10.4% for Rivian. Implied moves change throughout the day as option prices change.

A different source, ApexVol, listed lower "expected move" figures on Oct. 28, including about 10.8% for Roblox and 6.2% for Coinbase. According to that source, the gap arises because it strips out ordinary price movement over the days until expiration, while a full straddle includes it. A full straddle and an event-only estimate are two different measurements of the same market.

An apples-to-oranges trap

Some pages compare today's implied move with a long-run average and label a stock as priced "below" its history. EarningsWatcher's listed long-run averages for Roblox (about 19.4%) and Pinterest (about 18%) are measured as peak intraday moves on earnings day, not as close-to-close moves (from one day's closing price to the next).

A peak intraday figure is by definition at least as large as the close-to-close move on the same day, so putting an implied move next to it is not like-for-like. Comparing across different metrics can make an option look cheap or expensive when it is not.

What last quarter looked like

Per EarningsWatcher, for the late-July and early-August reports, options had priced roughly:

• Roblox: ±13.0%
• Coinbase: ±7.3%
• Rivian: ±8.4%
• Pinterest: ±13.3%

The closing moves were about -26.9% for Roblox, -10.6% for Coinbase, -9.6% for Rivian and -8.7% for Pinterest. Three of the four moved more than implied; Pinterest finished inside its range. Four data points are not a pattern, and past moves do not set the odds for the next report.

IV crush and risk

Implied volatility (IV) is the market's expectation of future price swings, built into option prices. It usually rises into an earnings report and often falls afterward, a drop known as the "IV crush."

An option can lose value after earnings even if the stock moves in the hoped-for direction, because the pre-earnings price included an event premium (extra value paid for the uncertainty).

• Buying options into earnings can lose most or all of the premium paid.
• Selling options to collect that premium can produce large losses if a stock moves much further than expected.

The takeaway

An implied move is a market-derived estimate of magnitude, shaped by the expiry chosen, the method used and the time of day. It is a snapshot, not a forecast, so check what any single figure is being compared against.

This article is educational commentary on public market events, not personalized investment, trading, or tax advice.