Highest Implied Volatility Stocks Right Now

Implied volatility is the market's price for a stock's future movement, read out of its option prices. Most of the market trades quietly; a handful of names carry option prices that imply enormous swings ahead. This page ranks them: the US stocks whose near-the-money options carry the highest implied volatility right now, measured from the most recent session's closing prices and refreshed with the weekly batch.

The board: highest implied volatility right now

SELECT underlying_symbol AS ticker,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.5)(implied_volatility), 1) AS atm_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.5)(option_close / underlying_close), 1) AS option_price_pct_of_stock,
       count() AS contracts_measured,
       sum(volume) AS contracts_traded
FROM global_markets.options_greeks
WHERE date = (SELECT max(date) FROM global_markets.options_greeks)
  AND iv_converged AND implied_volatility BETWEEN 0.02 AND 5
  AND abs(strike_price / underlying_close - 1) <= 0.05
  AND expiration_date BETWEEN date + 7 AND date + 60
  AND underlying_symbol NOT IN ('KORU','SOXL','SOXS','TQQQ','SQQQ','NVDL','NVDS','NVD','TSLL','TSLQ','TSLZ','SPXL','SPXS','UPRO','SPXU','LABU','LABD','FAS','FAZ','TNA','TZA','YINN','YANG','UDOW','SDOW','BOIL','KOLD','UCO','SCO','USD','SSO','SDS','QLD','QID','ERX','ERY','DRN','DRV','CURE','SOXY','MUU','SNXX','UVXY','SVXY','UVIX','SVIX','BULZ','WEBL','WEBS','DPST','DRIP','GUSH','AGQ','ZSL','BITX','ETHU','MSTX','MSTU','CONL','DUST','JNUG','JDST','NUGT','AMDL','NUAI')
GROUP BY underlying_symbol
HAVING sum(volume) >= 2000 AND count() >= 20
ORDER BY atm_iv_pct DESC
LIMIT 12

Each row is one underlying, measured across its near-the-money contracts (strikes within 5% of the stock price) expiring one week to two months out — the part of the option chain where implied volatility is cleanest to read. The board's top name, BE, carries an ATM implied volatility of 161%, and the median contract in its measured set trades at 16.1% of the stock price.

An implied volatility over 100% is a striking number: option prices consistent with the stock moving on the order of its entire value over a year. The names that carry it cluster in recognizable groups — recent IPOs, pre-earnings movers, and single-industry stocks riding a hot or broken theme.

To keep the list readable, leveraged and inverse ETFs are excluded: a 3x fund carries three times its index's volatility by construction, and a board full of them would say nothing about individual stocks. Thin chains are excluded too — every name here had at least 20 measurable contracts and 2,000 contracts traded on the session.

The other end: what calm costs

SELECT round(100 * quantileExact(0.5)(implied_volatility), 1) AS spy_atm_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.5)(option_close / underlying_close), 1) AS spy_option_price_pct_of_stock,
       count() AS contracts_measured
FROM global_markets.options_greeks
WHERE date = (SELECT max(date) FROM global_markets.options_greeks)
  AND underlying_symbol = 'SPY'
  AND iv_converged AND implied_volatility BETWEEN 0.02 AND 5
  AND abs(strike_price / underlying_close - 1) <= 0.05
  AND expiration_date BETWEEN date + 7 AND date + 60

The same yardstick on SPY reads 12.7% — the board's top name prices in movement more than ten times larger. The gap shows up directly in premium: a near-the-money SPY contract trades around 0.7% of the fund's price, against 16.1% for BE. Every dollar of optionality costs more where the expected motion is bigger; the liquid-versus-volatile comparison walks through that trade-off contract by contract.

Where the whole market sits

SELECT count() AS underlyings_measured,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.25)(iv), 1) AS p25_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.5)(iv), 1)  AS median_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.75)(iv), 1) AS p75_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.95)(iv), 1) AS p95_iv_pct
FROM (
    SELECT underlying_symbol, quantileExact(0.5)(implied_volatility) AS iv
    FROM global_markets.options_greeks
    WHERE date = (SELECT max(date) FROM global_markets.options_greeks)
      AND iv_converged AND implied_volatility BETWEEN 0.02 AND 5
      AND abs(strike_price / underlying_close - 1) <= 0.05
      AND expiration_date BETWEEN date + 7 AND date + 60
    GROUP BY underlying_symbol
    HAVING sum(volume) >= 200
)

Across 753 underlyings with active option chains, the median ATM implied volatility is 52.1%, the top quartile starts at 82.7%, and the 95th percentile sits at 136.6%. The board above is the far right tail of this distribution. Note what the distribution measures: actively traded option chains skew toward the market's most-watched names, and quiet mega-caps sit well below the median here.

Reading the board without getting burned

High implied volatility is not a buy signal and not a sell signal — it is a price. Option sellers on these names collect fat premiums and carry the risk the move exceeds them; option buyers pay up front for exposure the market already expects to be violent. The one reliable statement is relative: vega is largest exactly where this board lives, so positions in these names gain and lose value on shifts in the volatility itself, not only on the stock's direction. Around scheduled events the pattern sharpens — implied volatility builds into earnings and collapses after the report, and several board regulars are there for exactly that reason.

FAQ

What counts as a high implied volatility?

Against the current market, the top quartile of actively traded names starts near 82.7% and the 95th percentile near 136.6%. The board's names sit above even that, with the leader at 161%.

Why are leveraged ETFs excluded from this list?

A leveraged or inverse fund multiplies its index's daily move by construction, and its options price that in — a 3x semiconductor fund would top this board every week without saying anything about an individual company. Excluding them keeps the list about single names.

Is high implied volatility good or bad for options traders?

Neither — it is the price of movement. Sellers collect larger premiums and carry larger risk; buyers get exposure to big moves at a big up-front cost. What matters is whether the realized move exceeds what the price implied.

How is the implied volatility on this page measured?

From each underlying's near-the-money contracts (strikes within 5% of the stock price, expiring 7-60 days out) at the latest session's close, keeping only contracts where the volatility solve converged. The page value is the median across those contracts, refreshed with the weekly batch.

Every number above is a stored, versioned query over the full options tape — expand any panel to audit the measurement, or screen implied volatility across any name on the Strasmore terminal. For the concept itself, start with what implied volatility is; for how it decays after events, see earnings and the greeks.