The Earnings Playbook: November 17-21, 2025

📊 The Weekly Earnings Season Playbook

Here’s a clear, scan-friendly earnings playbook for Nov 17-21 (ET). Use it to interpret the data, not as advice.

Schedule at a glance:

• Tue 11/18 – Before Open: BIDU, PDD

• Wed 11/19 – Before Open: TGT · After Close: NVDA

• Thu 11/20 – Before Open: WMT

Quick data highlights (IV / IV Rank / IV Percentile / Options Vol / Total OI)

How to Read This Week

• Liquidity anchor: NVDA dominates flow (≈3.48M contracts traded; ≈20.8M OI). If you’re studying clean price discovery and tight markets around earnings, this is the week’s center of gravity.

• Retail pair: TGT (Wed AM) and WMT (Thurs. AM) give a back-to-back look at big-box retail. TGT shows higher IV Rank (~69) than WMT (~42), while WMT carries a higher IV Percentile (~85%), a useful contrast between Rank (position vs. year’s high/low) and Percentile (how often IV has been lower).

• China tech window: BIDU and PDD both report Tue AM. BIDU’s IV Rank ~70 and Percentile ~84 signal elevated volatility versus its own past year; PDD’s low IV Rank (~20) and IV ~38% suggest relatively calmer implied movement this cycle.

• Short-term IV trend: Across all five names, 5-day IV ≈ current IV, which implies the pre-earnings IV build has been steady rather than spiking late.

How to use this (education only):

• Release timing matters: Pre-open names (BIDU, PDD, TGT, WMT) often see spreads settle during the first 15–30 minutes after the bell; after-close (NVDA) pushes most price discovery into the evening and next morning.

• Rank vs. Percentile: A high IV Rank means IV is high versus its own yearly range; a high Percentile means IV has been lower most days this year. Watching both helps you judge whether “vol is rich” for that name.

• Liquidity first: Options volume and total open interest hint at fill quality and bid/ask width; NVDA and WMT lead on depth this week.

For education, not recommendations.

Understanding the Setup

Before diving into specific trades, it’s important to understand what drives the opportunity each quarter.

Leading up to an earnings announcement, speculators and hedgers rush to buy options to position for potential surprises. This surge in demand inflates implied volatility (IV), increasing the cost of options on both sides of the market.

As sellers of options, that’s where we find our edge. We’re not trying to predict direction; we’re trying to capitalize on temporary overpricing. Once the report is released, volatility often collapses, a phenomenon known as IV crush, and that’s when time decay and probability work in our favor.

How I Approach Earnings Trades

My earnings approach is grounded in probability, structure, and risk management, not prediction.

Here’s how I typically frame each trade:

• 📈 Probability of success: 80% or higher

• 🎯 Strike placement: Outside of the expected move

• 🧩 Strategy choice: Short strangle (undefined risk) or iron condor (defined risk)

I prefer to stay outside the expected move because roughly 80% of stocks trade within their implied move immediately following earnings. This allows us to consistently position for high-probability outcomes while maintaining appropriate risk controls, mostly seen through proper position-size.

Final Thoughts

Earnings trades are a small but valuable part of my overall approach. They teach precision, patience, and the discipline to size positions appropriately. These are typically one-day trades, so position sizing and risk management are paramount.

For weekly updates and detailed earnings alerts check out The Implied Perspective.

Probabilities over predictions,

Andy Crowder

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