Nvidia announced on November 12 that Jensen Huang had resigned as CEO and CFO Colette Kress would serve as interim CEO. The company reports results after the U.S. close on November 17, its first earnings report since the change. Here is how to read the options market's expected move for NVDA around that date, and what a pair of snapshots can and cannot tell you.
How the expected move is computed
An expected move is read from option prices, not from a model of earnings. The definition used here:
expected_move_pct = (call_mid + put_mid) / spot - Take the first expiration after the event. For NVDA, that is the November 18 weekly.
- Take the strike nearest the current price (the at-the-money strike) and use the same strike for the call and the put.
- Add the two mid prices (the at-the-money straddle) and divide by the underlying price.
At the November 11 regular-session close the inputs were:
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Expiry | 2026-11-18 |
| Strike | 172.50 |
| Straddle (call mid + put mid) | 16.12 |
| Spot | 173.73 |
| Expected move | 16.12 / 173.73 = about 9.3% |
On the morning of November 12 (U.S. Eastern time), after the leadership announcement, the same calculation on the same expiry read about 11.3% at 23:33 KST (09:33 ET). The first number uses closing mids and the second uses live mids, so the two snapshots are not identical in basis.
What the change does and does not say
The gap between 9.3% and 11.3% is real in the sense that the arithmetic is the same. Attributing it to the CEO change alone is another matter, for several reasons:
- The straddle prices the whole period to expiry, not only the one-day reaction after the report. The November 18 expiry includes the days between now and the release.
- Spot moves between snapshots, and so does the strike that is nearest the money.
- Time to expiry shrinks every day, and implied volatility also reflects the broader market that day.
- Providers define the figure differently (nearest expiry versus first expiry after the event, mid versus last, adjustments for the days before the event). Compare numbers only when the definition matches.
So an expected move is a statement about the size of movement the market is charging for. It says nothing about direction, and the stock can finish outside the range.
Checking against what happened last time
To compare an earnings reaction consistently, use the regular-session close before the release and the next regular-session close. Nvidia reported after the close on February 25, 2026. NVDA closed at $195.56 that day and at $184.89 the next trading day, a decline of about 5.46%. This ignores after-hours highs and lows. One past result says little about the next one. It is only a way to practice the comparison: size of the implied range before, size of the realized close-to-close move after.
Reproducing the number
The definition above is published as atm-straddle-mid/1 and the figure can be fetched without an account:
GET https://www.signumhq.com/api/options/implied-move?tickers=NVDA&after=2026-11-17 The response includes the expiry, strike, straddle, spot, the session it is based on, and whether the mids are live or end of day, so you can check the arithmetic yourself.
Sources: Nvidia's 8-K on the leadership change (via StockTitan), Nvidia's investor relations page for the Q3 results call, and historical closing prices for February 2026.
Drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by a person. This is general information about how options pricing is read, not investment advice.
If you want to see the expected move next to the actual move for past reports, SIGNUM keeps both for U.S. companies here: https://www.signumhq.com/en/earnings/NVDA?from=devto_nvdaceo
