The expected move is the single number that tells you how much the options market thinks a stock will swing by expiration, and most traders never learn how to actually find it on their own platform. It’s sitting in your broker’s interface right now, usually one click away, but the menu path is different everywhere and nobody writes it down in one place. Here’s exactly where to look on tastytrade, thinkorswim, and Interactive Brokers, plus the manual formula that works anywhere.
Key Takeaways
- The expected move is roughly a 68% probability range for where a stock lands by a given expiration, priced directly into the options chain.
- tastytrade displays it as a shaded region on the trade page. thinkorswim shows it as blue brackets once you enable it in Chart Settings. Interactive Brokers requires either a quick manual calculation or the Probability Lab tool.
- The universal formula: front-week at-the-money straddle price times 0.85 isolates the earnings-specific move on any platform, even ones without a built-in display.
- Always compare the expected move in percent, not dollars, especially across index products like SPX and SPY, since their notional sizes differ by roughly 10 to 1.
- The expected move tells you magnitude, not direction. It says nothing about whether the stock goes up or down.
What the Expected Move Actually Tells You
Every options chain has a built-in forecast. Market makers price options based on how much they expect the underlying to move, and that pricing can be reverse-engineered into a probability range. The expected move is that range: a one standard deviation estimate, meaning the market thinks there’s roughly a 68% chance the stock finishes within it by the expiration you’re looking at.
This matters most going into earnings, when a single overnight print can move a stock 5%, 10%, or more. Premium sellers use the expected move to place iron condor wings outside the range they expect the stock to breach. Directional traders use it to size positions and set realistic profit targets instead of guessing. Either way, you need the number before you can use it, and that means knowing where your specific platform puts it.
Finding the Expected Move on tastytrade
tastytrade builds the expected move directly into the trade page as a shaded probability region overlaid on the price chart, so you see it the moment you pull up a symbol, no settings menu required. It updates live as implied volatility shifts, which matters in the days before an earnings print when IV can move meaningfully day to day.
If you want the number without doing the math by hand, tastytrade is built around exactly this kind of visual, probability-first approach to options trading, which is part of why it’s a common first stop for traders learning to read expected moves.
If you’d rather calculate it manually on tastytrade (or verify what the platform is showing you), pull the front-week at-the-money straddle: add the mid-price of the ATM call and the mid-price of the ATM put, then multiply by 0.85. That 0.85 factor backs out the portion of a normal week’s straddle price that isn’t earnings-related, isolating the print-specific move.
Finding the Expected Move on thinkorswim
thinkorswim, Schwab’s platform for active traders (last verified 2026-08-08), doesn’t surface the expected move by default. You have to turn it on: open Chart Settings, go to Price Display, and enable Show Expected Move. Once it’s on, the range appears as blue brackets on the price chart, updating with the current options chain.
You can also find it inside the Trade tab. The options chain header on thinkorswim includes an expected-move readout for whatever expiration cycle you’ve selected, which is useful if you’re comparing the move across multiple expirations rather than looking at a chart.
Menu layouts on any platform shift with software updates, so if Show Expected Move isn’t where described above, check thinkorswim’s current help documentation. The concept and the underlying calculation don’t change even when Schwab moves a toggle.
Finding the Expected Move on Interactive Brokers
Interactive Brokers (last verified 2026-08-06) doesn’t have a single dedicated “expected move” label the way tastytrade and thinkorswim do, but the information is there. The fastest manual method: take the midpoint price of the at-the-money options and subtract intrinsic value. What’s left is the time value the market has priced in for that expiration, which is the raw material for the expected move calculation.
For a more visual approach, IBKR’s Probability Lab tool plots a probability distribution across strikes based on current options pricing, which effectively shows you the expected move as a curve rather than a single bracketed range. Confirm the tool’s current location in your account, since IBKR periodically reorganizes its Trader Workstation menus.
On options pricing: IBKR Pro runs $0.65 per contract at 10,000 contracts per month or fewer, with a $1.00 minimum per order. IBKR Lite is tiered by premium, from $0.25 per contract under a $0.05 premium up to $0.65 at $0.10 and above.
The Manual Calculation That Works on Any Platform
If your broker doesn’t show the expected move anywhere, or you want to sanity-check what it’s showing you, two formulas cover almost every situation:
Quick version: Front-week at-the-money straddle price (call mid plus put mid) times 0.85.
More precise version: (ATM straddle x 0.6) plus (first out-of-the-money strangle x 0.3) plus (second out-of-the-money strangle x 0.1). This is closer to the weighted formula tastytrade itself uses internally, and it smooths out some of the noise a single straddle price can carry right before an earnings print when market makers are actively adjusting quotes.
Either formula gives you a dollar figure. Divide by the current stock price to convert to a percentage, which is the form you actually want for comparing across different stocks or expirations.
Platform Comparison: Expected Move Access
| Platform | Built-in display | Where to find it | Manual calc needed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| tastytrade | Yes, automatic | Shaded region on the trade page | No, but formula works as a check |
| thinkorswim | Yes, opt-in | Chart Settings > Price Display > Show Expected Move; also in the Trade tab options chain header | No, once enabled |
| Interactive Brokers | Partial (Probability Lab) | Probability Lab tool in Trader Workstation, or manual ATM midpoint minus intrinsic value | Often yes |
Comparing the Expected Move to How the Stock Actually Moved Historically
A stock’s expected move for its upcoming print is only half the picture. Tools like Market Chameleon and Barchart both publish historical-versus-implied move comparisons, showing how often a given stock’s actual earnings move has landed inside or outside what the market priced in beforehand. If a stock has beaten its expected move 70% of the time over the last several prints, that’s a signal the options might be systematically underpricing the real move, at least for that particular name.
This is context, not a rule. A handful of historical prints is a small sample, and one blowout quarter can skew the average. Use it to sanity-check the current pricing, not to override it.
A Hypothetical Walkthrough
Say a hypothetical trader is looking at a stock trading at $150 two days before earnings. The front-week ATM straddle (the $150 call plus the $150 put) is priced at $10.60 combined. Multiplying by 0.85 gives an expected move of roughly $9.01, or about 6% of the stock price.
A trader selling premium might use that 6% figure to place an iron condor with short strikes just outside the range, for example around $141 and $159, illustrative levels only and not a recommendation for any specific stock. A trader buying a directional call or put might use the same 6% to size the position and set a realistic profit target rather than expecting a 15% move that the options market isn’t pricing in at all. Neither of these is a trade recommendation. They’re illustrations of how the same number gets used two different ways depending on the strategy.
Index Options: Why SPX and SPY Look Different
If you trade index options, always convert to percentage terms before comparing. SPX is priced at roughly 10 times the notional value of SPY, so a $40 expected move on SPX and a $4 expected move on SPY can represent the exact same underlying forecast. Looking at the raw dollar figures without converting to percent is a common way traders convince themselves two products disagree when they don’t. XSP, the mini version of SPX, trades at 1/10th the notional and has European-style cash settlement, another reason to work in percentages when comparing it against SPY or full-size SPX.
Who This Isn’t For
The expected move is a probability estimate, not a guarantee, and it says nothing about direction. If you’re a buy-and-hold investor who doesn’t trade options, none of this changes how you should think about a stock going into earnings. And if you’re brand new to reading an options chain at all, spend time understanding strikes, mid-prices, and implied volatility first. The expected move calculation builds on those basics, and skipping straight to it without that foundation is how traders end up trusting a number they don’t actually understand.
Bottom Line
The expected move is already priced into every options chain, you just have to know where your platform puts it: automatic on tastytrade, a toggle away on thinkorswim, and mostly manual on Interactive Brokers. Learn the 0.85 straddle formula once and you can find it on any platform, with or without a built-in display.
FAQ
Q: Is the expected move the same as implied volatility?
A: They’re related but not the same thing. Implied volatility is an annualized percentage baked into an option’s price. The expected move translates that IV into a specific dollar or percentage range for a specific expiration, which is usually the more directly useful number for earnings planning.
Q: Does the expected move predict which direction a stock will move?
A: No. It’s a magnitude estimate only. A stock priced for a 6% expected move could still go up 6%, down 6%, or land inside that range entirely. The number tells you how big a move the market is pricing in, not which way it breaks.
Q: Why do the manual formula and my platform’s displayed number sometimes differ slightly?
A: Small differences are normal. Platforms may use slightly different weighting across strikes, pull quotes at a different moment, or round differently. If the gap is more than a percentage point or two, double check you’re using the correct expiration and current bid/ask midpoints rather than stale prices.
Q: Should I use the expected move the same way for a mega-cap stock and a small-cap stock?
A: The calculation is the same, but treat the output with more caution on lower-volume names. Wide bid/ask spreads on thinly traded options chains can distort the straddle price you’re using as an input, so the resulting expected move is less reliable than it would be on a heavily traded large-cap.
Q: How far in advance should I check the expected move before earnings?
A: Check it close to the print, ideally the same day or the day before. Implied volatility, and therefore the expected move, tends to climb steadily in the final days before an earnings release as the market prices in more uncertainty, so a number pulled a week out will typically understate the real expected move by the time the report actually hits.
For more on reading options pricing around a specific print, see our Learn hub for the full library of platform mechanics and strategy guides.