Tesla Earnings: The Market's Wild Card Went Quiet

Tesla still carries a large earnings straddle, but ORATS data shows its recent earnings moves and ex-earnings volatility have settled far below the old regime.

Summary

Tesla’s earnings are now priced calmly, with implied moves around 6.3% but actual stock reactions averaging only 4.3% over the last six quarters, placing its base volatility in the 26th percentile—the lowest among mega‑caps. This contrast to peers like Alphabet, whose volatility remains high, shows a shift from the previously volatile earnings pattern, though the market still anticipates a larger move than recent history suggests.

July 20, 2026

By Matt Amberson

Tesla reports Wednesday after the close, the same evening as Alphabet, in the week the financial press keeps calling the AI rally's big test. The options don't treat Tesla as the scary half. Its delivered earnings moves have collapsed from a 12.9% average across 2023 and 2024 to 4.3% over the last six quarterly reports, and going into the print the market prices a 6.3% move with Tesla's ex-earnings volatility at the 26th percentile of its year. It's the only mega-cap reporter priced anywhere near calm.

I expected Tesla to be the loud one here. Two numbers explain why it isn't. The headline 30-day implied vol, about 50% for Tesla, loads the coming report's expected jump into the front of the curve. Strip that scheduled jump out and you get the ex-earnings base vol, the everyday volatility the options price between events. Tesla's headline number sits at the 69th percentile of its year; the base underneath it sits at the 26th.

The Earnings & News tab charts every implied move against what the stock actually did. Source: ORATS /datav2/hist/earnings, live July 20.

Its last six reports moved the stock 2.9%, 5.4%, 8.2%, 2.3%, 3.5% and 3.6%, three up and three down, none in the double digits. The six reports before them delivered 9.7%, 9.3%, 12.1%, 12.1%, 12.3% and a 21.9% blowout. Tesla's earnings stopped being violent. The why is its own question, the stock is bigger and its story less binary than the 2023 delivery-miss era, but six quarters is a pattern.

So are Tesla's options cheap? No. The 6.3% implied move is about 1.5 times what Tesla has delivered lately, 6.3% against a 4.3% average, the ordinary premium a vol seller collects into an earnings print. The options recalibrated to a calmer stock. The 8.6% three-year delivered average that makes the straddle look like a bargain is dragged up by prints that are now two years stale.

The Outlook puts Tesla's ex-earnings IV near the bottom of its one-year range, well under the 50th percentile, and tags it bullish on IV. Source: ORATS /datav2/cores, live July 20.

Put Tesla next to the rest of the mega-cap earnings cohort. On Friday's settled close its base vol at the 26th percentile is the only one below the 50th; the other nine, most reporting over the next few weeks, span the 79th to the 99th.

Tesla is alone in the bottom third of the mega-cap earnings class. Source: ORATS /datav2/hist/cores.

Alphabet's Trade Builder, same week: its implied earnings move is 5.1%, smaller than Tesla's, but its base vol sits in the top third of its year, well above Tesla's. Source: ORATS /datav2/cores, live July 20.

Alphabet is the cleanest contrast. Its implied earnings move, 5.1%, is smaller than Tesla's 6.3%, so the market prices a bigger jump for Tesla.

But only Alphabet's everyday volatility is elevated. It closed Friday at the 97th percentile of its year and is still in the top third on Monday's tape, against Tesla's 26th.

The vol buyer has a fair objection. One of those last six moves, that 8.2% drop, already blew through a 6.3% straddle, and a single guidance shock could bring the old regime back. Six quiet quarters is the base case here, not a guarantee.

Tesla still carries the bigger earnings straddle of the two, but everything under it has gone quiet. Pull up the Earnings & News tab and the Outlook for anything reporting this week, or query /datav2/hist/cores for ivPctile1y across the names, and rank the base vols yourself.

$TSLA $GOOGL

#TeslaEarnings #Volatility #OptionsTrading #EarningsSeason #ImpliedVol

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