🌊 Volatility — what options cost

Volatility is the price of options. This page shows how expensive they are, how that price changes with time to expiry, how much more puts cost than calls, and how the price compares with how much the stock really moved.

💡 Why this page matters Option prices say very little about which way a stock will go. They say a lot about how big a move is being paid for. So this is the page for the question "are options cheap or expensive right now?" — which is what decides whether buying or selling them makes sense.

New words? Glossary → volatility. The top strip works as on every ticker page.

The six tiles IV over time Tenors today Curve by expiry Skew & slope Report dates Expiry table Routine

The six tiles at the top

Tile	How to read it
IV 30 days	The price of a 30-day at-the-money option, as a yearly %. Its rank says where it sits in the last year (0 = lowest, 100 = highest).
Realised 20 days	How much the price actually moved over the last 20 sessions, in the same units.
IV − realised	The gap between the two. Above 0 = options charge more than the price has been delivering (rich). Below 0 = less (cheap).
25Δ skew	Put IV minus call IV at 30 days. Above 0 = people pay extra for protection.
Term slope	90-day IV minus 30-day IV. Below 0 = backwardation (the near end costs more: something is expected soon).
Expected move	The ±1σ move for 30 days, as % and in dollars, and to the front expiry. About two times in three the price stays inside it.

Each tile also shows a z: how unusual today is against this ticker's own last 60 sessions. 0 is normal, ±1 is notable, ±2 is rare.

IV over time

The at-the-money IV for a fixed 10, 20, 30, 60, 90 and 180 days ahead, so the lines do not jump when an expiry drops off. Tick the tenors you want; the dashed grey line is the realised volatility.

IV 30d	Rough meaning for a large stock
under 20 %	Calm, cheap options.
20 – 35 %	Normal.
35 – 60 %	Nervous, or an event is coming.
over 60 %	Very high: crisis, big news, or a naturally wild stock.

Every ticker has its own normal — a utility at 25 % is high, a small biotech at 60 % may be ordinary. That is why the page compares with the ticker's own history.

💡 From IV to a movemove ≈ price × IV × √(days ÷ 365). A $100 stock at IV 30 % for 30 days: 100 × 0.30 × √(30/365) ≈ ±$8.6 (1σ).

🎓 Pro tipWatch the gap between the short (10d) and long (90d) lines. When 10d jumps above 90d, the market is pricing something near (earnings, news). After the event the short line collapses back — that drop is the "IV crush" that option sellers are paid for.

A gap in a line means the chain did not reach that tenor that day. A strike whose call IV and put IV disagree is rejected, not averaged.

The tenors today

One row per tenor with its IV, its z and its percentile against the last 60 sessions. A high number is high for this ticker, not for the market.

Today's curve by expiry

For each expiry (left to right = nearer to further): the at-the-money IV, the 25-delta call IV and the 25-delta put IV. Some at-the-money points are missing on purpose, where call and put disagreed too much to trust.

Shape	Meaning
rising left → right	Contango: normal and calm. Longer options cost more per year.
falling left → right	Backwardation: near-term stress. Short options are expensive.
a spike at one expiry	That expiry contains an event, usually earnings.
put line well above call line	Normal for stocks: protection costs extra. A widening gap = rising fear.
call line above put line	Upside is in demand: takeover talk, a squeeze, a meme rally.

🎓 Pro tipA spike at one expiry is where a calendar spread lives: sell the expensive event expiry, buy the next one out, and keep the difference when the event passes. A very large move can still hurt — size it as such.

Skew, term slope and the variance premium

Three lines around a zero line:

Line	Above zero means	Below zero means
25Δ skew 30d	Puts cost more than calls (normal; bigger = more fear).	Calls cost more than puts (chasing upside).
term slope 90−30	Contango: calm.	Backwardation: stress, or an event inside 30 days.
IV30 − realised	Options priced for more movement than is happening: premium is rich.	Priced for less than is happening: premium is cheap.

25Δ skew	Meaning
0 to +3 pts	Mild; normal for many large stocks.
+3 to +8 pts	Normal to elevated protection demand.
above +8 pts	High fear (index funds often live here).
below 0	Calls richer than puts: unusual for stocks.

⚠ "Rich" can be rightIf earnings is next week, IV is high for a reason. Realised volatility over the last 20 days does not know about a jump that has not happened yet. Check the report dates (below) before selling "rich" premium.

Estimated report dates

The site has no earnings calendar behind this. It reads the report dates out of the options themselves: after a report, short-dated IV collapses in one day. Each detected date is one of those collapses.

Grade	Meaning
GOOD	About four a year at a quarterly rhythm, and those sessions really moved the stock. Trust the dates.
PARTIAL	The rhythm is looser than quarterly (index funds land here — they have no earnings). Read them as events, not reports.

The list shows the last eight detections with the IV drop (in volatility points) and the move of the price that session. Next expected is the last detected date plus this stock's usual gap — a projection, not an announcement.

A fund or a futures contract has no earnings, so the card says so.

🎓 Pro tipCompare the usual move on report days with the premium the options charged. If the stock usually moves less than was priced, selling the event (an iron condor over earnings, say) has paid for this name; if it usually moves more, buying has.

⚠ Always check the company's own announcementThe next date is an estimate. A confirmed date comes from the company, not from this page.

Expiries table

Column	How to read it
ATM IV · 25Δ call · 25Δ put	That expiry's volatility at the money and on each wing.
skew	25Δ put minus 25Δ call. Positive = puts richer.
call OI · put OI · P/C	Contracts held, and the put/call ratio of that expiry.
call vol · put vol	Contracts traded today.
gamma $/1%	Dealer gamma in that expiry. + calms, − amplifies.

🎓 Pro tipScan the ATM IV column for one expiry clearly higher than its neighbours. That is where the market expects the event — even when the calendar is uncertain.

A routine that works

Level: is IV 30d high or low for this ticker (rank and z)?
Rich or cheap: IV minus realised. Clearly above 0 → premium is rich; clearly below → cheap.
Events: does the next report fall before the expiry you care about? If so, the richness may be the event.
Shape: contango or backwardation? Is one expiry sticking up?
Skew: is protection unusually expensive against this ticker's own history?

To act on it: Trade by Expiry prices the structures; Expected-Move Spreads turns the implied move into two credit spreads.