10 earnings setups · 3 flagged as asymmetric
Scan covered S&P 500 earnings reports from May 18 through May 30, 2026. Ten names qualified with 4+ measurable quarters of post-earnings move data and a bracketing weekly options expiration. Among those, three setups show the options market pricing materially LESS movement than the stock has historically delivered around earnings: DECK (May 21 AMC) where IV implies ~11% vs 14.7% historical average with 7 of 8 quarters exceeding 8%, MRVL (May 27 AMC) where IV implies ~10% vs 14.1% historical with 6 of 8 quarters above 8%, and DELL (May 28 AMC) where IV implies ~8% vs 9.7% historical with 4 of 8 above 8%. SNOW also moves big historically (12.1% avg) but its options are nearly fairly priced into earnings. NVDA (May 20 AMC) is the lone name with notably RICH IV vs realized — front-week pricing about 7% but the stock has averaged only 4.7% over its last eight reports, with just 2 of 8 exceeding 8% — premium-selling territory, not a long-vol candidate. The retail bellwethers (HD, LOW, WMT) were measured and dropped from the top 10 due to low historical realized; PANW and SNPS were dropped due to no qualifying threshold cross and a corporate-action distortion respectively. The window is mechanically long-vol biased given how the past two NVDA cycles have repriced the entire AI complex's IV term structure lower despite continued realized vol in supplier names.
DECK
Deckers Outdoor Corp.Front-week IV implies an ~11% move but DECK has averaged 14.7% over its last 8 reports, with 7 of 8 quarters exceeding 8%. Every reported quarter for two years has moved at least 6.3% and the typical reaction has been a 14-20% gap. Options have systematically underpriced this name's earnings vol.
DECK trades on HOKA wholesale momentum and UGG seasonality, both of which produce large guidance swings that consensus typically misses by 10-15%. The stock is now 50% off its January 2025 high and the implied-move term structure has compressed alongside the price, but the underlying business has not become less binary. Wholesale orders and DTC mix are the swing factors, with channel commentary historically driving most of the move. The fact that the last six reports have averaged 16% absolute moves while front-week IV sits near 11% is the asymmetry.