Q3 2026 earnings season is effectively over. Retail reported between August 18 and 20 and split hard: three names rose on beats, TJX fell on soft guidance despite beating, and Walmart posted its worst one-day earnings reaction in ten quarters even after beating estimates and raising guidance. NVIDIA, Salesforce, Marvell, and Broadcom reported next, then Adobe and Oracle both reported September 10, the Fed delivered a surprise rate hike on September 16, and Costco reported September 24. Only Micron remains, reporting Wednesday, September 30, the last print of the quarter. For options traders, the calendar itself is still the edge: implied volatility inflates on a schedule and crushes on a schedule, and knowing those dates in advance is worth more than any single trade idea. (Last verified September 28, 2026.)
- Retail reported August 18-20 (HD, TGT, LOW, WMT, TJX) with a split result: Home Depot (+1%), Target, and Lowe’s (+2%) rose on beats, TJX fell about 3% on soft Q3 guidance despite beating, and Walmart fell nearly 9%, its worst earnings-day reaction in ten quarters, even after beating estimates and raising full-year guidance.
- NVIDIA, Salesforce, Marvell, and Broadcom reported Aug 26-Sept 2. Oracle and Adobe both reported September 10: Oracle beat and raised (cloud infrastructure revenue up 121% year over year), Adobe beat for a fifth straight quarter but still fell about 11.7% over the following week on decelerating AI-ARR growth.
- The Fed delivered a surprise 25-basis-point rate hike to 3.75%-4.00% on September 16, its first hike since July 2023, a 12-0 vote that landed the same day as Lennar’s earnings.
- Costco reported September 24: a clean beat ($6.75 EPS, $93.9B net sales, up 11.2% year over year) that included a one-time tariff-refund benefit, and the stock barely moved.
- Only Micron remains. It reports fiscal Q4 2026 results Wednesday, September 30, after the close, with options pricing roughly a 10.3% move.
- Dates and results below were checked against company investor-relations releases and this site’s own earnings recaps as of September 28, 2026.
Where the Season Stands: Everything but Micron Is Behind Us
If you were positioning around the July banks-to-Mag-7 stretch or the August retail cluster, both parts of the calendar played out weeks ago, and the software/enterprise cluster, the Fed, and Costco have played out since. traderc.com has covered the results: the NVIDIA reversal-rally recap, the Zoom/CrowdStrike/Salesforce/Snowflake cluster recap, the Broadcom results update, the Adobe recap, the Oracle recap, the Lennar-and-surprise-rate-hike recap, and the Costco recap, plus earlier pre-earnings setups and recaps on AMD, Duolingo, Rocket Lab, Super Micro, AST SpaceMobile, and CoreWeave. That is useful context even if you missed those prints: it shows the expected-move framework below applied in real time, name by name. The only name left on the board is Micron, reporting September 30; see the Micron pre-earnings setup for the strikes the options market is already pricing.
How the Retail Cluster Actually Played Out (Aug 18-20)
All five retail beats did not translate into five stock gains, and the split is a clean, current illustration of why the crush, not the beat, decides the trade.
| Company | Result vs. estimates | Stock reaction | What drove it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Depot (HD) | Beat: adjusted EPS $4.92 vs. ~$4.72 expected; sales +5.7% to $47.9B | +1% | Reaffirmed full-year guidance; comparable sales accelerated to 1.7%. |
| Target (TGT) | Beat: comparable sales +3.8% vs. 2.4% expected; EPS $4.11 (boosted by a $994M tariff-refund benefit) | Rose, price targets raised | Traffic up 3.6%; full-year guidance raised. |
| Lowe’s (LOW) | Beat: adjusted EPS $4.40 vs. $4.22 expected; revenue +8.3% to $26B | +2% | Fifth straight quarter of positive comps despite soft DIY demand and margin pressure from energy costs. |
| TJX Companies (TJX) | Beat: EPS $1.22 vs. $1.19 expected; sales +5% to $15.2B | -3% | Q3 guidance ($1.30-$1.32 EPS) came in below the $1.35 Street estimate, overriding the beat and the raised full-year outlook. |
| Walmart (WMT) | Beat: adjusted EPS $0.81 vs. ~$0.74 expected; revenue +5.9% to $187.9B; guidance raised | -9% | Full-year adjusted EPS outlook ($2.80-$2.87) landed below the ~$2.90 consensus and US comparable sales slowed to 2.6%, its worst earnings-day drop in ten quarters. |
Walmart is the sharpest case study: a genuine beat-and-raise quarter that still fell nearly 9% because the forward guidance read weaker than the trailing numbers looked. It is the same beat-and-fall pattern covered elsewhere on this site, and a reminder that a short-premium structure sized only for “did the company beat” misses the variable that actually moves the stock: what management says about the next quarter.
The Rest of the Q3 2026 Earnings Calendar
A naming note that trips people up every quarter: reports landing in August and September mostly cover companies’ fiscal Q2 2026 results (or Q3/Q1 for companies on non-calendar fiscal years), but the reports themselves land in calendar Q3, which is why the trade press calls all of it “Q3 earnings season.” Report dates, not quarter labels, are what determine your options expiration and IV timeline.
The retail leg is behind us; here is the full slate through the end of Q3 2026 (September 30), with the reported names marked:
| Date | Company (Ticker) | Session | Expected-move tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue, Aug 18 (reported) | Home Depot (HD) | Before open | Low (2-4%) | Beat and rose about 1%; reaffirmed full-year guidance. |
| Wed, Aug 19 (reported) | Target (TGT), Lowe’s (LOW) | Before open | Low-mid (3-5%) | Both beat; TGT rose on a comps beat and raised guidance, LOW rose about 2% despite soft DIY demand. |
| Thu, Aug 20 (reported) | Walmart (WMT), TJX Companies | Before open | Low (2-4%) | Both beat estimates; WMT fell about 9% and TJX about 3% on guidance that read weaker than the trailing quarter, the widest beat-vs-reaction gap of the cluster. |
| Wed, Aug 26 (reported) | NVIDIA (NVDA), Salesforce (CRM) | After close | High (6-9% NVDA, mid 4-6% CRM) | NVDA beat on revenue ($96.22B) and EPS ($2.22), reversed an early dip, and closed up about 8.7%, beyond the 5-6% priced move. CRM beat and raised guidance as part of a four-name SaaS cluster. See the NVDA recap and SaaS cluster recap. |
| Thu, Aug 27 (reported) | Marvell Technology (MRVL) | After close | High (7-10%) | Reported the day after NVDA on the same AI-networking narrative. Smaller-float names like this tend to see outsized post-earnings swings. |
| Wed, Sept 2 (reported) | Broadcom (AVGO) | After close | Mid-high (5-7%) | Beat on revenue ($29.6B) and EPS ($3.32), but fell about 6% on Q4 guidance ($34.8B) landing below the $35.05B consensus and thinner gross margin. See the full AVGO results update. |
| Thu, Sept 10 (reported) | Adobe (ADBE) | After close | Mid (5.4% priced) | Beat for a fifth straight quarter and raised guidance, but fell about 11.7% over the following week, more than double the priced move, on decelerating AI-ARR growth and a CEO transition. See the full recap. |
| Thu, Sept 10 (reported) | Oracle (ORCL) | After close | Mid-high (11-12% priced) | Beat and raised on cloud infrastructure revenue up 121% year over year to $7.4B. Closed down 5.4% into the print, then reversed to roughly +4.1% after hours once results landed, a smaller net move than the priced range implied. See the full recap. |
| Tue-Wed, Sept 15-16 (occurred) | FOMC meeting (not earnings) | Statement, 2:00 PM ET Wed | Index-level event | A surprise 25-basis-point hike to 3.75%-4.00%, the first hike since July 2023, on a 12-0 vote, the same afternoon Lennar reported. See the Lennar recap for how the two catalysts landed together, and how FOMC decisions move options prices generally. |
| Thu, Sept 24 (reported) | Costco (COST) | After close | Low-mid (3-5% priced) | Beat on both lines ($6.75 EPS, $93.9B net sales, +11.2% YoY), but the stock barely moved, a one-time tariff-refund benefit and slowing comp-sales commentary offsetting the headline beat. See the full recap. |
| Wed, Sept 30 | Micron (MU) | After close | High (~10.3% priced) | Closes the quarter; options are pricing roughly a 10.3% move on a straddle near the $1,015 strike. Memory pricing is a direct read-through on the same AI-datacenter demand NVDA, MRVL, and AVGO already priced in earlier in September. See the pre-earnings setup. |
Every date on the table above has now happened except Micron’s, which is company-confirmed for September 30. Report dates can still shift on short notice, so recheck a company’s investor-relations page before positioning around any print.
The IV Run-Up Playbook
Earnings options trading is really two separate trades: the inflation phase before the print and the crush at the print. Pre-earnings implied volatility typically expands 15-30% in the 5-10 trading days before a report, then gives back 30-50% immediately after the numbers hit. Neither phase requires predicting the direction of the stock.
10 to 5 days out: the accumulation window
IV starts creeping higher as the report date enters the front expiration cycle. This is the window where long-premium structures (calendars, diagonals, long straddles you intend to exit before the print) are cheapest relative to what they will be worth at peak IV. If you buy premium here, the plan is usually to sell it back before the announcement, not to hold through it.
5 days to the day before: peak inflation
The steepest IV climb usually happens in the final week. Short-premium traders who want to sell the inflated front expiration get the most credit in the last one to two sessions before the report. The trade-off is obvious: you collect peak premium precisely because you are now committed through the binary event.
Print day: the crush
The front-month IV collapse happens at the first tradable moment after the news: the opening bell for a before-open reporter like Home Depot, the next morning for an after-close reporter like NVIDIA. The stock’s actual move versus the expected move decides who wins. Our TSLA and IBM case study walks through two real prints where the crush, not the direction, decided the P&L.
To measure the expected move yourself, take the at-the-money straddle price in the expiration immediately after the report and divide by the stock price. For a deeper walkthrough of the mechanics, start with how to trade options around earnings.
Strategy Selection by Volatility Tier
The most common mistake this stretch of the calendar invites is running the same structure on every name. A strategy sized for a 3% Home Depot move behaves completely differently on a stock pricing a 9% swing. Match the structure to the tier:
| Volatility tier | Typical names (rest of Q3) | Expected move | Structures that fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low IV | WMT, HD, TGT, COST, TJX | 2-5% | Debit spreads and narrow iron condors. Premium is thin, so wide short-premium structures collect little for the risk. |
| Mid IV | LOW, CRM, AVGO, ADBE | 4-7% | Iron condors at the expected-move wings; calendars into the print for premium buyers. |
| High IV | NVDA, MRVL, ORCL, MU | 6-10% | Credit spreads and defined-risk short premium (iron condors, short strangles with wings). Rich premium compensates for the wider distribution, but only defined-risk structures cap the tail. |
A hypothetical illustration of the tier logic: a trader expecting a quiet retail print might place an illustrative iron condor on Walmart with short strikes just outside the 3% expected move, risking a defined amount to collect the elevated pre-earnings credit. On NVIDIA, that same trader would need strikes roughly two to three times as far from the stock price to sit outside the expected move, and would still want wings on the position because AI-infrastructure names regularly blow through their straddle in either direction. Both examples are illustrative only, not recommendations.
Retail prints also have their own personality: they cluster on consecutive mornings, they gap at the open rather than overnight, and the read-through from one name (same-store sales, tariff cost commentary, consumer trade-down) often moves the next day’s reporter before it even opens. The AI-infrastructure names behave the opposite way, correlated on capex sentiment rather than on shared operating metrics, which is the subject of the next section.
The AI-Capex Correlation Trap: Aug 26 to Sept 10
The single most important risk-management note for the rest of the quarter is not one earnings cluster week, it is a loosely connected chain running from NVIDIA’s report on August 26 through Oracle’s on September 10. NVDA, MRVL, AVGO, and ORCL are not the same business (GPUs, custom networking silicon, custom AI ASICs, and cloud infrastructure backlog, respectively), but all four trade heavily on the market’s read of AI-capex durability, and a disappointing data point from any one of them has repeatedly moved the others in premarket trading this year.
Holding short-premium positions on more than one or two of these names in the same three-week window is not diversification. It is one large bet that hyperscaler AI spending stays on the trajectory the market is currently pricing, spread across four separate binary events. Staggering exposure, something like never having more than two AI-infrastructure earnings positions open at once, keeps a single disappointing print from resetting sentiment across a book of correlated names. The Fed’s rate decision landing September 16, six days after Oracle and Adobe both report, adds a second, unrelated source of index-level volatility right after the stretch. See how FOMC decisions move options prices for how that interacts with single-name event risk.
One more pattern worth respecting through this stretch: a strong headline beat does not guarantee a positive reaction, especially in a crowded, high-expectation name. We have documented the beat-and-fall pattern repeatedly this year, and NVDA, MRVL, and ORCL all currently carry the kind of elevated expectations that make the pattern more likely, not less.
What the Full Season Told You
The macro read stacked in a useful order this leg. Retail reported first (Aug 18-20) and spoke directly to the health of the US consumer heading into the holiday-prep quarter. NVIDIA, Marvell, and Broadcom (Aug 26 to Sept 2) confirmed hyperscaler AI-infrastructure spending was still accelerating rather than moderating, though Broadcom’s roughly 6% post-earnings drop on softer Q4 margin guidance showed the market pricing the cost side of that spending more carefully. Adobe and Oracle (Sept 10) gave the enterprise-software read: Oracle’s cloud-infrastructure beat-and-raise said AI demand is still converting to paid consumption, while Adobe’s beat-that-still-fell said the market is now pricing decelerating ARR growth, not just the headline number. The Fed’s surprise hike (Sept 16) and Costco’s muted reaction to a clean beat (Sept 24) both said the same thing from different angles: a good headline number does not automatically produce a good stock reaction once the market has a specific worry to price. Micron, reporting Sept 30, is the last data point, a direct read-through on the same AI-datacenter memory demand the earlier names already priced. Options traders who track which of these names beat and still fell, versus beat and ran, get an early sentiment signal that raw EPS tables do not show.
Bottom Line
Retail reported (Aug 18-20) and split hard, three gainers and two guidance-driven drops on beats. NVIDIA, Salesforce, Marvell, and Broadcom reported next: NVDA and Salesforce beat and rallied, Broadcom beat but fell about 6% on soft margin guidance. Adobe and Oracle both reported Sept 10 (Oracle beat-and-raised, Adobe beat and still fell 11.7% for the week); the Fed delivered a surprise hike Sept 16; and Costco beat but barely moved Sept 24. Only Micron is left, reporting Sept 30 with options pricing roughly a 10.3% move. Match your structure to each name’s volatility tier, treat the IV run-up and the crush as separate trades, and remember that a beat is not a reaction, guidance and market-specific worries decide that part.
FAQ
Q: Why is it called Q3 2026 earnings season if most of these are Q2 results?
A: The season is named for when the reports happen (the third calendar quarter), not the period they cover. Most of the names in the table above are reporting fiscal Q2 2026 results; a few with non-calendar fiscal years (Oracle, Broadcom, Costco) are reporting a different fiscal quarter that still lands in September. Traders anchor on report dates rather than quarter labels for exactly this reason.
Q: How do I calculate the expected move before one of these reports?
A: Take the price of the at-the-money straddle in the expiration immediately following the report date and divide it by the stock price. A $28 straddle on a $400 stock implies roughly a 7% expected move, in NVIDIA’s typical range. Most broker platforms also display this directly on the options chain.
Q: Why treat NVIDIA, Marvell, Broadcom, and Oracle as correlated instead of four separate trades?
A: They sell different things, GPUs, networking silicon, custom AI chips, and cloud infrastructure, but the market currently prices all four heavily on the same underlying question: is hyperscaler AI-capex spending sustainable. A disappointing data point from the first name to report has repeatedly moved the others before they even opened this year. Sizing them as one correlated bet rather than four independent ones is a risk-management choice, not a prediction about any one print.
Q: What happened at the September 15-16 FOMC meeting, and did it matter for options traders?
A: The Fed delivered a surprise 25-basis-point hike to 3.75%-4.00%, its first hike since July 2023, on a 12-0 vote, catching a market that had largely been debating a cut. It landed the same afternoon as Lennar’s earnings, a real example of a macro event and a single-name print stacking on one trading day; see the Lennar recap for how that combination actually traded. The lesson generalizes beyond this one date: when a macro event and a print share a session, size for both, not just the one you were already tracking.
Q: Do these report dates change?
A: Yes, occasionally, and this calendar has had two real examples of it. Oracle’s date moved from an earlier September 14 estimate to a company-confirmed September 10, the same day as Adobe. And this page itself listed Micron’s report as Tuesday, September 29 in an earlier version; the company-confirmed date is Wednesday, September 30, corrected above as of September 28, 2026. Dates above were checked against company investor-relations pages and this site’s own earnings recaps. Confirm the date on the company’s investor-relations page before opening any position tied to it, since dates can still shift on short notice.
Q: If Walmart and TJX both beat estimates, why did the stock reactions differ so much from Home Depot and Target?
A: The size of the guidance miss relative to expectations, not the size of the beat, decided the reaction. Walmart’s and TJX’s forward guidance both landed below consensus even though trailing-quarter results were strong, while Home Depot reaffirmed and Target raised. The market prices the next quarter, not the one that just closed. See the beat-and-fall pattern piece for more examples of this gap.
Keep learning: see how this same framework played out on AMD and CoreWeave earlier this earnings season, or start with the core guide to trading options around earnings.