Analog Devices reports fiscal Q3 2026 results before the open on Wednesday, August 19, and the options market is currently pricing a 5.8% move by the end of that week, according to Bloomberg data cited by Investing.com. That number is worth pausing on for one reason: ADI has beaten its own priced-in move in six of its last eight earnings reports, including one quarter where the actual move came in nearly four times larger than what options had priced.
- Analog Devices reports fiscal Q3 2026 results Wednesday, August 19 at 7:00am ET, with the conference call at 10:00am ET, confirmed directly on Analog Devices’ investor relations site
- Options are pricing a 5.8% move into the print as of this week, a figure that will keep shifting through Tuesday’s close and needs to be re-checked at the moment of any trade
- ADI is an analog and mixed-signal chipmaker selling into industrial, automotive, and communications infrastructure customers, a different demand cycle than the AI-datacenter names (AMAT, CSCO, CRWV, COHR, SMCI) already covered this earnings season
- Across its last eight reports, ADI’s actual move exceeded the options-priced move six times, including an 18.8% swing against a 4.7% priced move in February 2025
- Wall Street consensus sits near $3.92 billion in revenue and $3.33 non-GAAP EPS, close to ADI’s own guidance of $3.9 billion (plus or minus $100 million) and $3.30 (plus or minus $0.15) issued back in May
What’s actually happening Wednesday
Analog Devices will release fiscal third-quarter 2026 results at 7:00am ET on Wednesday, August 19, with a conference call to discuss results at 10:00am ET. That date and time come directly from Analog Devices’ own investor relations release, and independent syndication on Yahoo Finance, StockTitan, and Morningstar all cite the identical date, so there is no scheduling ambiguity here the way there sometimes is with smaller-cap names.
Wall Street’s consensus, per Zacks, calls for roughly $3.92 billion in revenue and $3.33 in non-GAAP earnings per share, close to the guidance Analog Devices itself gave back in May: revenue of $3.9 billion plus or minus $100 million, non-GAAP EPS of $3.30 plus or minus $0.15. When a company’s own guidance and consensus sit this close, the more interesting question usually isn’t whether the company clears the bar, it’s how the market reacts to the details underneath the number, the pattern that played out with Applied Materials and Coherent earlier this month.
The expected move, and why 5.8% is a snapshot, not a fact
The 5.8% figure comes from the at-the-money straddle price on ADI’s front-week options, the standard way traders back into an “expected move.” Add the price of the nearest-expiration at-the-money call and put together, divide by the stock price, and the result is roughly a one-standard-deviation range, meaning about a 68% probability the stock finishes inside that band by expiration. It’s a probability estimate built from where option buyers and sellers are putting their money right now, not a forecast of where the stock will land.
That number moves daily as implied volatility shifts into the print, and by the time this article is read, it may already look different from 5.8%. Pull a fresh number before trading rather than relying on what was accurate earlier in the week. The site’s expected-move guide covers the calculation platform by platform.
Why ADI isn’t another AI-chip earnings trade
This earnings season has produced a run of semiconductor prints tied directly to AI datacenter buildout: Applied Materials’ wafer-fab equipment, Cisco’s AI networking gear, CoreWeave’s leveraged AI-compute bet, Coherent’s optical components, Super Micro’s server hardware. ADI doesn’t belong in that cluster, and that distinction matters for how a trader should think about the setup.
Analog Devices makes analog and mixed-signal chips, the components that convert real-world signals (temperature, pressure, voltage, motion) into digital data a system can use. Its largest end markets are industrial automation, automotive (electrification and driver-assistance systems), and communications infrastructure, not AI accelerators or datacenter GPUs. That makes ADI’s quarter a read on capital-goods demand, factory automation spending, and auto production schedules, slower-moving and more cyclical than the AI-capex headlines driving CoreWeave or Super Micro.
For options traders, the practical implication is volatility. AI-datacenter names have carried some of the highest implied volatility this earnings season because the AI-capex narrative can swing sharply on a single data point. ADI’s industrial and auto exposure moves on steadier, more incremental signals, part of why its priced move (5.8%) sits well below what the market demanded for Coherent or CoreWeave. That doesn’t make ADI “safer,” cheaper implied volatility just means less priced-in uncertainty, not none, and ADI’s own history below shows how often that pricing has undershot the actual result.
ADI’s history of beating its own priced move
This is the part of the setup that deserves the most attention before anyone puts on a position. Across ADI’s last eight quarterly reports, the stock’s actual move exceeded the options-implied move six times, based on data compiled by Investing.com.
Priced move vs. actual move, ADI’s last 8 earnings reports
| Report date | Options-priced move | Actual move | Exceeded priced move? |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 21, 2024 | 4.5% | 4.4% | No |
| November 26, 2024 | 3.8% | 4.5% | Yes |
| February 19, 2025 | 4.7% | 18.8% | Yes |
| May 2025 | 3.0% | 6.6% | Yes |
| August 2025 | 4.9% | 5.5% | Yes |
| November 2025 | 4.9% | 9.6% | Yes |
| February 18, 2026 | 4.9% | 6.5% | Yes |
| May 20, 2026 | 6.4% | 5.1% | No |
The February 2025 report is the outlier worth understanding rather than dismissing: an 18.8% actual move against a 4.7% priced move is nearly four times the expected range, the kind of gap that happens when a print carries an unusually large surprise (guidance shock, a major demand inflection, or a market-wide volatility event landing on the same day) that the options market simply hadn’t priced in days ahead of time. Six-of-eight is a real pattern, but it isn’t a guarantee, and the two quarters where ADI’s move landed inside or under the priced range (August 2024 and May 2026) are a reminder that “usually exceeds” is not “always exceeds.”
Illustrative example: reading this history into a hypothetical setup
This is a hypothetical walk-through for education only, not a trade recommendation. A one-standard-deviation expected move should, in theory, contain the actual result close to 68% of the time. ADI’s own history runs hotter than that: the actual move has breached its priced range in six of the last eight quarters, not roughly two or three. That gap is worth sitting with before choosing a side.
Say a trader is weighing two hypothetical approaches to Wednesday’s print. A trader selling premium (for example, a hypothetical short strangle with strikes set at the priced-move boundary) would have been on the losing side of that breach in six of the last eight quarters, per the table above, meaning the strikes alone got tested or blown through more often than the 68% math would predict. A trader buying premium (a hypothetical long straddle) benefits from that same pattern directionally, but still has to overcome the cost of buying at elevated implied volatility into the event, and the two quarters where the actual move landed inside the priced range are exactly the scenarios where that premium is hard to recover. Neither hypothetical is a recommendation to replicate; they illustrate why the historical breach rate matters as much as the headline priced-move number when picking a side, if any, of this trade.
Strategy considerations for a quieter industrial-semis name
ADI is not the trade for someone chasing a headline-grabbing, high-beta AI-capex swing. Its implied volatility into this print is meaningfully lower than what CoreWeave or Coherent carried into their own reports, and its business is exposed to slower-moving industrial and auto cycles rather than a single narrative that can gap the stock double digits on a guidance sentence. That’s a real limitation for traders specifically chasing the violent, AI-driven moves that have defined parts of this earnings season.
Where ADI fits better is as a lower-volatility complement inside a broader earnings-season options book, useful because its demand drivers (auto production schedules, factory capex, telecom infrastructure spend) don’t correlate tightly with the AI-capex names already covered here. A trader running positions across AMAT, CSCO, and COHR this cycle already carries concentrated AI-capex exposure; adding ADI diversifies toward a different macro read instead of doubling down on the same one. That framing, not a bigger expected move, is the actual case for paying attention to this print.
Bottom Line
ADI reports Wednesday morning with options pricing a 5.8% move, a figure worth re-checking fresh before any trade since it shifts daily into the print. The stock’s own history of exceeding that priced move in six of its last eight quarters, including one outlier nearly four times the priced range, is the single most important context for sizing any position around this report. This is an industrial and auto-cycle read, not another AI-capex trade, and that distinction is the reason to treat it differently from this season’s higher-beta chip earnings.
FAQ
Q: When does Analog Devices report Q3 FY2026 earnings?
A: Wednesday, August 19, 2026, before market open, with results released at 7:00am ET and a conference call at 10:00am ET, confirmed on Analog Devices’ investor relations site.
Q: What move is the options market pricing for ADI’s earnings?
A: As of this week, options were pricing roughly a 5.8% move by end of week, based on Bloomberg data. That figure shifts daily as implied volatility moves into the print, so it should be re-checked at the time of any trade rather than treated as fixed.
Q: Is Analog Devices an AI stock?
A: Not in the datacenter-GPU or AI-networking sense that AMAT, CSCO, or CRWV are this season. ADI is an analog and mixed-signal chipmaker whose largest end markets are industrial automation, automotive, and communications infrastructure, a read on capital-goods and auto demand rather than AI datacenter capex.
Q: How often has ADI’s stock move exceeded what options priced in?
A: In six of its last eight quarterly reports, the actual move was larger than the options-implied move heading in, including an 18.8% move in February 2025 against a priced move of just 4.7%. Two of the last eight quarters saw the actual move land at or under the priced range.
Q: What’s the difference between ADI’s earnings setup and an AI-chip name like CoreWeave or Coherent?
A: Mainly implied volatility and the demand driver. AI-capex names carried higher priced moves this season because their businesses hinge on a single fast-moving narrative. ADI’s lower priced move reflects steadier, more cyclical industrial and auto demand, though its history shows “lower priced move” hasn’t meant “small actual move” in most recent quarters.
For more on how to build this kind of pre-earnings analysis before the next report, the site’s expected-move guide walks through the calculation platform by platform, and the Market Analysis hub has the latest earnings setups and recaps as this season continues.