As Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) prepares to report earnings Tuesday after the bell, market participants face a divergence between positive earnings results and negative price action.
Historically, AMD shares experience significant post-earnings volatility, averaging a ~16.5% move (higher or lower) over the month following its announcement. However, the broader backdrop suggests a trade setup that captures some downside risk. The stock surged 18% last earnings. But it also fell 18% for the reporting period prior to that. Current options prices are implying a 7.3% move, slightly higher than the last 8 quarter median move of 6.4%
At a high level, AMD’s technical picture has deteriorated rapidly across multiple timeframes and indicators. For example, momentum and trend metrics, including Stochastics, Ichimoku, MACD, Williams %R, and key moving averages, are all signaling a short bias. (I identify when and how profitable those indicators have been in the accompanying video.)
AMD, 1 year
But it’s not just AMD’s price action ahead of earnings that causes concern. Since July 1st, 45 tech hardware and semiconductor companies have reported earnings. While operations look solid on paper, 38 beat top-line expectations (35 with actual growth vs. 9 declines), 37 logged earnings growth, and 36 beat on the bottom line, market reaction has been overwhelmingly negative.
Relentless Pullback: The 1-month average price performance across these 45 companies stands at -13.4%, with 36 of the 45 trading lower since July 1st. By comparison, the S&P 500 has remained flat while the Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) has pulled back roughly 5%. Do these results indicate fundamental weakness? No, but good results continue to receive a tepid reception, and disappointing results are severely punished.
This disconnect highlights a high hurdle rate for IT hardware. Capital is actively rotating away from tech hardware into defensive and value-oriented sectors such as Healthcare, Financials, and Industrials. Even strong reports are meeting heavy sell-on-news pressure.
To capitalize on potential downside drift or post-earnings weakness while managing volatility crush, a calendar spread offers an asymmetrical risk/reward structure.
Proposed Strategy: September 11 / November $430 Calendar Put Spread
Rationale: Selling the shorter-dated September 11th put captures the post-earnings “volatility crush,” while holding the longer-dated November put maintains directional exposure if the post-earnings downward drift persists. In other words, you are using the power of time decay and the natural collapse in volatility in the shorter-dated put to finance the purchase of the longer dated put. This will also help offset the time decay in the longer dated November put.
