Apple CEO Tim Cook at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2026.
Ludovic Marin | AFP | Getty Images
Earnings on deck this afternoon for Apple and Amazon will likely decide if the stock market can end what’s so far been a rough week on solid footing.
Unfortunately for bulls it’s been tough to get two big-tech winners at once this earnings soon — last week Alphabet and Tesla fell together, and last night Microsoft rallied while Meta fell. It’s easy to see Apple and Amazon finding the same fate, with the stocks going in different directions so far this year and options flows mixed.
Apple is up 25% year to date, making records and a seeing a 7% rally since the S&P 500 peaked on June 2. Options traders are braced for a bigger-than-usual move on earnings, with implied volatility pricing a 3.4% move after the report drops — more than double the stock’s median 1.5% move after its past four reports.
AAPL year to date
While options flows were leaning bullish to start the week, early gain in Apple share reversed while the stock market sold off Wednesday and options traders took a more bearish lean in the stock.
While more than $470 million of the $634 million in options premium on Apple Wednesday was tied to calls, much of it was calls sold, with net trade sentiment in the options leaning slightly bearish, according to data from SpotGamma and Barchart. The most popular contract expiring Friday by volume Wednesday was the 330-strike puts, which need a more than 3% drop to pay off.
In Amazon, exactly flat on the year, traders look a bit more optimistic. Most of the $615 million in options premium was tied to puts Wednesday, but traders looked more likely to sell that volatility than buy it. Net trade sentiment was positive by almost $3 million and 100,000 deltas, Barchart analysis shows.
Traders expect a 6.6% move after Amazon earnings, compared to the median 7% move the past four quarters, according to Cboe LiveVol data.
