Earnings
Flow
Earnings are a coin flip. But you can see who is positioning for the flip, how early they did it, and how much the market has already priced in.
This page only shows names with both recent unusual flow in the last 30 days and a report inside the next three weeks. It's the intersection of "smart money is active here" and "a binary event is coming," which is a much smaller list than the full earnings calendar.
THE 60-SECOND VERSION
The expected move is your opponent.
Before you think about direction, understand this: the options market has already published its guess. The Expected Move column is what the at-the-money straddle implies, and you only make money on a directional earnings trade if the stock moves more than that, in the right direction. Being right about direction is not enough.
Early money is smarter money
A big call position built 18 days out is a thesis. The same position bought the afternoon before the print is a gamble on a number nobody has yet. EARLY-window flow carries 1.5x the weight of a same-size print landing the day before, which is exactly the distinction this page exists to draw.
IV crush is the default outcome
Implied volatility inflates into a report and collapses the second it lands. Buy an option the day before earnings and you can be right on direction and still lose, because the premium you paid deflates faster than the stock moves.
Last quarter is one data point, not a trend
The Last Q row shows what the straddle predicted for the most recent report versus what actually happened. One data point isn't a pattern, but it's real: if the market undersold the last move by more than half a point, that's worth knowing before you price this one.
The caution the product itself makes: institutions buy calls as hedges too. Heavy call premium into a print is not automatically bullish. A fund short the stock will buy upside calls to cap its risk over the event, and that shows up here looking exactly like conviction. Pair every reading with the flow detail before you size a binary-event trade.
THE ALPHA
It turns a coin flip into a priced bet.
You still can't know the number. What you can know is what the market expects, who positioned early, and what happened the last time this name reported. Those three things change earnings from gambling into a bet with odds you can read.
Expected Move gives you a concrete hurdle. If the straddle says plus or minus 9% and your thesis is a 4% beat, the trade is already wrong even if you're right.
Almost no other tool tells you when the positioning went on. Early money and last-minute money get weighted very differently in the consensus math, and here you can tell them apart.
Predicted move versus what actually happened, for the most recent report. It's a single result, not a running average, but it's one more check than most straddle traders bother to make before pricing the next one.
ANNOTATED · THE REAL SCREEN
Signal mix first, then conviction.
A 90% bullish split that all landed yesterday is worth less than a 76% lean that's been building for three weeks. The signal-mix chips tell you which one you're looking at, so read them before you read the percentage.
| Ticker | Report | Expected Move 1 | Flows | Premium | Conviction 3 | Signal Mix 4 | Last Q 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MUXLK · $118B cap | Oct 2 · AMC · 17d | ±7.8% | 14 | $3.2M | BULLISH81 / 19 splitConviction 62 | EARLY 14 | ±6.9% priced −11.4% actual |
| ORCLXLK · $412B cap | Sep 19 · AMC · 4d | ±6.1% | 9 | $4.8M | MIXED54 / 46 splitConviction 8 | LATE 6THESIS 3 | ±5.6% priced +1.9% actual |
| CHWYXLY · $14B cap | Sep 17 · BMO · 2d | ±13.2% | 4 | $740K | BULLISH79 / 21 splitConviction 58 | IMM 4 | ±12.4% priced −16.8% actual |
Illustrative rows built from the real column set and scoring. Not live quotes, not recommendations.
Expected Move: the hurdle
Taken from the at-the-money straddle (or the nearest OTM strangle when spot sits between strikes), priced off an expiration just after the report, divided by the stock price. It's what the market has priced in, not a prediction. A directional trade needs the stock to clear this number, in your direction, to pay properly.
LOOK FOR → a move you can actually argue for
Last Q: priced versus actual
One number: what happened last time this name reported, against what the straddle said would happen. "Beat" means the move ran more than half a point past what was priced; "miss" means it fell more than half a point short. Occasionally the live card also flags that the report session couldn't be fully confirmed. When it does, treat the direction as informed, not certain.
LOOK FOR → a beat by more than half a point
Conviction %, and the split under it
Conviction measures how far the weighted flow leans one way, doubled: a 50/50 split scores 0, a 100/0 split scores 100. That weighting is by how early each flow landed, the same recency weight as the signal windows, not by premium size, so dollar amount doesn't move this number on its own. That's why a lopsided-looking split doesn't always clear green: an 81/19 split still lands at only 62, comfortably amber. It turns green at 75% and above, amber from 50 to 74. A card that also clears $5M premium, 10+ flows and sits inside 7 days of the print earns a separate "Top Setup" star elsewhere on the live page. Most high-conviction rows don't.
LOOK FOR → the split, then the conviction number it produces
Signal mix: how early they were
Every print is tagged by how far ahead of the report it landed, shown as a count per window rather than one label. EARLY is 14-21 days and carries the heaviest weight. THESIS is 7-13. LATE is 3-6. IMM is 0-2, the highest-IV and lowest-information window. A mix weighted toward EARLY and THESIS is real positioning; a mix that's only IMM is last-minute money.
LOOK FOR → EARLY and THESIS counts, not just IMM
Compare the MU row and the CHWY row: both show a lopsided bullish split in the high 70s to low 80s, and both land in the same amber conviction band, 62 for MU and 58 for CHWY. Same-looking numbers, not remotely the same trade. MU's signal mix is fourteen EARLY prints, all of it, on $3.2M, seventeen days out, and on its last reported quarter the stock moved 11.4% against a 6.9% priced move: one report where the straddle undersold it. CHWY's mix is four IMM prints, nothing else, on $740K, two days out, into a 13.2% expected move. The first is a thesis with weeks of runway behind it. The second is people buying lottery tickets on a name already priced for chaos.
The four windows, and what each one is worth
The closer to the print, the more the positioning is a guess and the more expensive the options are. Both of those move against you at the same time, which is why late-window signals are weak signals.
WORKED EXAMPLE · ILLUSTRATIVE
The MU row, traded properly.
EARLY window, an 81/19 bullish split, Conviction 62, amber not green, on $3.2M, 17 days out, and a name whose straddle undersold the move last time it reported. The trade closes before the report, on purpose. Real ticker, illustrative fills.
Early-weighted mix, and last quarter agrees
MU's card shows fourteen EARLY prints, all of it: an 81/19 bullish split that works out to a Conviction of 62, comfortably amber rather than green, on $3.2M across 14 flows. Last quarter the stock moved 11.4% against a 6.9% priced move, so the straddle undersold it that time. Early positioning plus one data point in your favor is enough to take a trade seriously, not enough to assume it repeats.
Buy the run-up, not the report
MU at $104. Buy 3 MU $110 calls expiring three weeks after the print at $4.60, which is $1,380 at risk. Expiry sits past earnings on purpose, so you have flexibility rather than a forced decision.
The plan is written down now: exit the day before the report, whatever the P&L. That rule is the trade.
Two tailwinds at once
MU drifts to $110 as the sector firms up, and implied volatility climbs into the print. You're long delta and long vol, so both are paying you. The contracts mark $8.10. This is the part of the earnings cycle retail almost never trades.
Sell into the highest IV of the quarter
Close all three at $8.90 the afternoon before the report. You're selling inflated premium to somebody who wants the coin flip. You gave up the chance of a monster gap, and in exchange you skipped the IV crush and a 50/50 outcome entirely.
Illustrative. The stock moved 5.8% and the option nearly doubled because rising IV did half the work. Hold one more day and the same position gets hit by the crush.
MU slides to $97 over the two weeks because the sector rolls over, and the calls mark $1.70. You're down $870 and the report hasn't even happened. Early conviction isn't protection; it just means somebody with more money than you was also early and also wrong. And if you'd broken the rule and held through the print, a 5% pop into IV crush would still have left you red. That's the trap this structure is designed to avoid.
THE FILTER
Green flags, red flags.
✓Worth a look when…
✕Stay out when…
HOW PEOPLE LOSE MONEY HERE
Three mistakes, in order of cost.
Buying calls the day before the print
This is the single most expensive habit in retail options. You pay peak implied volatility for a 50/50 outcome, and the crush takes a chunk of your premium even when the stock goes your way. Being right about direction and still losing money is the standard result.
Reading heavy call premium as a bullish call
The product says this plainly and it's worth repeating: institutions buy calls as hedges. A fund short into a print will buy upside protection, and on this page that looks identical to conviction. Blindly following it puts you long against somebody's short.
Ignoring the expected move entirely
People buy a 13% expected-move name because they think it will beat by a bit. A beat that produces a 4% pop on a 13% priced move is a losing options trade. The hurdle is published on the screen and most traders never read it.
PAIRS WITH
Never trade an earnings row on its own.
This page tells you the positioning and the price of the event. It can't tell you which contracts, or whether the whole sector is about to work against you.
Track five prints without trading any of them.
Write down the expected move, the consensus lean and the window for five upcoming reports. Then write down what actually happened. After one earnings season you'll have your own data on how often this positioning is right, and that beats taking our word for it.
Every ticker, expected move, fill and P&L on this page is illustrative and built from the real structure of the tool. Nothing here is a recommendation, a live quote, or a promise of a result. Trading options around earnings carries elevated risk, including total loss of premium paid.