Traders brace for $800 billion in earnings-related stock movement

traders are bracing for over $800 billion in combined market cap movement wednesday night, when alphabet, amazon, meta and microsoft report earnings after the bell. options pricing suggests a more volatile session than the average over the past year for three of the four names. meta is the outlier — options price a 7.3% move, below its yearlong average of 9.3%. but meta has beaten the implied move after its last three reports. alphabet has the opposite history: options price a near-6% swing, while the four-quarter average is under 1.5%. options flows lean bullish across all four. one trader spent $616,000 on 581 of amazon's 260-strike calls expiring next friday. another paid $731,000 for 299 of the 265-strike calls expiring september 18. in microsoft, nearly $3 million in trades hit the 450-strike calls expiring mid-june.