Also called IV (options)
Implied volatility
How much movement the option's price implies the market expects. It is not a forecast anyone made, it is what falls out of the price when you solve backwards.
Updated 2026-09-05
Implied volatility is how much movement the option's price implies the market is expecting, annualised. Nobody publishes it as a forecast. It is what falls out when you take the observed premium and solve the pricing model backwards for the one input you cannot observe.
This makes it the most informative number on an option chain, because it is the only one that is an opinion. Price, strike, time and rates are facts. Implied volatility is the market's collective view on uncertainty, expressed as a number you can compare across strikes, across expiries and across companies.
Why it matters more than direction
Buying an option when implied volatility is elevated means paying for expected movement that is already priced in. This is why buying calls just before an earnings announcement so often loses money even when the direction is right: the announcement resolves the uncertainty, implied volatility collapses, and the premium falls with it. The move you predicted arrives and the option is worth less than you paid.
See also
- Option premium — What the buyer pays the seller for the contract. It is the option's price, and it is made of exactly two things: intrinsic value and time value.
- Volatility — How much a price moves around, usually stated as annualised standard deviation. It is a measure of variability, not of danger, though the two often coincide.
- Intrinsic and time value — Intrinsic value is what the option would be worth exercised right now. Everything else in the price is time value, and it decays to zero at expiry.
Educational content, not investment advice. Angie explains how a valuation is built so you can judge it yourself. What you do with that is your call.
