Nasdaq's Worst Month Since March 2025: How to Read Earnings Implied Moves for PLTR, AMD, ANET and SMCI

A 2.86% one-day drop in the Nasdaq Composite is not subtle, and it makes next week's earnings calendar feel a lot louder. Four AI-linked names are listed to report right after it: Palantir (PLTR) on Monday, Nov. 2, and AMD, Arista Networks (ANET) and Super Micro (SMCI) on Tuesday, Nov. 3. All four are listed after the close on public earnings calendars such as earnings-watcher.com and ApexVol. Those are aggregator listings, so confirm each date and time on the company's investor page.

This article is not about which way those stocks will go. It is about what the options market's "expected move" number does and doesn't tell you.

What happened on Friday

According to Yahoo Finance and Reuters coverage of the close on Oct. 30:

• S&P 500: fell about 1.8% to 7,580.
• Dow: fell about 1.1%.
• Nasdaq Composite: fell 2.86% to 25,437, finishing October down roughly 5%, its worst month since March 2025, per Investing.com.
• Cboe Volatility Index (VIX): closed near 19.4, up about 13% on the day. The VIX measures expected 30-day S&P 500 volatility, built from option prices.

Among the factors cited was a run of earnings that renewed worries about AI spending, alongside other pressures such as high oil prices. Intel fell about 28.6% on Friday after a weak outlook, and AMD fell about 10.9%. Amazon, which reported the day before, flagged higher spending and heavy cash outflow. Coverage differed on some details, so treat the figures here as approximate.

What an "implied move" actually is

Options prices embed the market's guess about how far a stock might travel. Around earnings, many traders summarize that with a quick approximation:

1. Find the at-the-money straddle for the first expiration after the report. A straddle is a call and a put at the same strike, and "at the money" means the strike is closest to the current stock price.
2. Add the two prices together.
3. Divide by the stock price.

If a $100 stock has a straddle priced at $10, the approximate implied move is about 10%, up or down. It is a magnitude, not a direction.

Two caveats matter:

• Conventions differ. Some education sources use the full straddle price, while others multiply it by 0.85 to approximate one standard deviation. That is a convention rather than a law.
• Real outcomes are lumpier than the math. A one-standard-deviation range is meant to contain the outcome roughly 68% of the time under a bell-curve assumption. Earnings reactions are often lumpier than a bell curve, so a roughly one-in-three chance of landing outside the range is not a rounding error.

Why the same stock shows different numbers

Public sources checked on Oct. 30 did not agree.

• earnings-watcher.com listed approximate implied moves of ±12.4% for PLTR, ±8.8% for AMD, ±10.9% for ANET and ±14.4% for SMCI.
• ApexVol showed lower "earnings-only" figures for some names: about ±8.9% for PLTR, ±6.1% for AMD and ±6.4% for ANET (the last as of Oct. 29). It showed higher figures for the straddle expiring Nov. 6: near ±13.3%, ±9.9% and ±10.0%.

Several things can explain a gap like that:

• Different expirations. A straddle expiring Nov. 6 includes days of ordinary trading after the report, not just the earnings jump.
• Different timestamps. Friday's sell-off moved prices quickly.
• Different methods. Some sites strip out "normal" volatility to isolate the event.

The takeaway: when you see one confident percentage, ask which expiration, which method and what time it was captured.

History is context, not a prediction

earnings-watcher.com also lists each company's average historical earnings move over about ten years: roughly ±17.0% for PLTR, ±10.6% for AMD, ±12.0% for ANET and ±16.0% for SMCI. Its methodology is not fully disclosed, so treat these as rough context.

All four implied moves it shows sit below those averages. Comparing a stock's implied move with its own history can show whether options are pricing more or less surprise than usual, but past reactions don't set a ceiling or a floor on the next one.

The IV crush wrinkle

Implied volatility (IV) is the volatility level baked into an option's price. Before a known event, IV tends to be elevated. Once the news is out, uncertainty resolves and IV often drops sharply. This is called IV crush.

That means an option's value can fall even if the stock moves the way the owner hoped, because the drop in IV can outweigh the price change. Buyers can lose the entire premium they paid (the option's purchase price). A large enough move can still beat the crush, which is why neither buyers nor sellers of options around earnings get a free pass. Sellers face the opposite risk: a big surprise move can produce losses far exceeding the premium received, particularly with positions that have no defined risk limit.

A backdrop where the VIX has just jumped can also lift option prices broadly, so part of any stock's implied move may reflect market-wide nerves rather than company-specific uncertainty.

A short checklist for reading any implied-move headline

• Which expiration was used, and when was the number captured?
• Is it the full straddle or an adjusted figure?
• How does it compare with the stock's own history, and how many earnings events is that history based on?
• What happens to option values if volatility falls after the report?

This article is educational commentary on public market events, not personalized investment, trading, or tax advice. Market data is from public sources as of Oct. 30, 2026, and may have changed.