Here's what options traders see before Alphabet, Microsoft report after the bell

CNBC reports on positioning in the options market ahead of Alphabet and Microsoft quarterly earnings, both scheduled to report after the close. Options activity in the days before an earnings release typically reflects demand for protection or directional exposure through calls and puts, and implied volatility generally rises into the event as the market prices a larger expected move. The transmission channel here is event-driven repricing: the options premium embeds the market's estimate of post-earnings price swings, so shifts in call-put skew and implied volatility can signal how traders are positioning for revenue, cloud, and advertising results. Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) are the most directly exposed, and because both are heavyweights in major indices, their post-report moves can spill over into index futures and broader technology sector flows. Traders should watch the after-hours reaction and guidance commentary on cloud and AI-related capital spending, as those will determine whether the pre-earnings options positioning was accurate.

HIGH-impact news is typically a market-moving event with multi-pip or multi-percent intraday reactions. Examples include central bank rate decisions, major CPI/NFP releases, geopolitical shocks, mega-cap earnings beats/misses, and regulatory announcements. Traders typically position-reduce or hedge ahead of scheduled HIGH-impact events, and follow the wire in real time to react to unscheduled ones (war headlines, central-bank emergency statements, surprise corporate actions). The Trading News Terminal squawk box reads every HIGH-impact headline aloud the moment it hits the wire — so active traders don't have to stare at the feed.

Active traders typically follow a three-step workflow when a market-moving headline hits the wire: (1) read the headline on the terminal or hear it on the squawk box; (2) assess whether the news is already priced in (by checking intraday price action in the seconds before) or whether it's genuinely new information; (3) act — either entering a breakout position, fading an overreaction, or tightening stops on existing trades. Trading News Terminal's Pro plan delivers wire-grade headlines within seconds of the source, with automatic audio squawk on every HIGH-impact event, so the read-assess-act cycle never waits on a refresh button.