MSFT Implied Volatility: IV Now & Its History

Microsoft carries one of the calmest mega-cap chains on the board. This page tracks MSFT's implied volatility, the market's live price for its future movement, three ways: every session of the last three months, its month-by-month history against the index benchmarks, and how it slopes across expirations. Every number is measured from real option closing prices and refreshed with the weekly batch.

MSFT implied volatility, the last 90 days

SELECT toString(date) AS session_date,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.5)(implied_volatility), 1) AS atm_iv_pct
FROM global_markets.options_greeks
WHERE underlying_symbol = 'MSFT'
  AND date >= (SELECT max(date) - 90 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 date
HAVING count() >= 10
ORDER BY date

Each point is one session's median implied volatility across MSFT's near-the-money contracts (strikes within 5% of the stock, expiring one week to two months out). The latest reading is 25.4%. An IV of that size is an annualized number: the yearly percentage move the option prices treat as typical, and dividing by roughly 16 gives the implied one-day move.

MSFT IV history vs the market, month by month

SELECT toString(toStartOfMonth(date)) AS month,
       round(100 * quantileExactIf(0.5)(implied_volatility, underlying_symbol = 'MSFT'), 1) AS msft_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExactIf(0.5)(implied_volatility, underlying_symbol = 'SPY'), 1) AS spy_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExactIf(0.5)(implied_volatility, underlying_symbol = 'QQQ'), 1) AS qqq_iv_pct
FROM global_markets.options_greeks
WHERE underlying_symbol IN ('MSFT', 'SPY', 'QQQ')
  AND date >= toDate('2022-07-01')
  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 month
HAVING countIf(underlying_symbol = 'MSFT') >= 50
ORDER BY month

The chart is MSFT's fear gauge over time, drawn against the market's own. The SPY and QQQ lines carry the same measurement for the market's benchmark chains, the latest month reads 27.2% for MSFT against 12.7% for SPY and 19.9% for QQQ. A diversified index nearly always carries less implied volatility than any single name inside it, the gap between the lines is the single-name premium, and how that gap widens and narrows is the story of MSFT's risk cycles. The peaks mark the episodes when option buyers paid up hardest; the troughs are the stretches the market treated the name as quiet.

The term structure: MSFT IV by expiration

SELECT multiIf(days_to_expiry <= 14, 'Under 2 weeks', days_to_expiry <= 45, '2-6 weeks',
               days_to_expiry <= 120, '6 weeks - 4 months', 'Beyond 4 months') AS expiry_bucket,
       round(100 * quantileExact(0.5)(implied_volatility), 1) AS atm_iv_pct,
       count() AS contracts
FROM global_markets.options_greeks
WHERE underlying_symbol = 'MSFT'
  AND 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
GROUP BY expiry_bucket
HAVING count() >= 5
ORDER BY min(days_to_expiry)

Reading across the buckets shows what the market expects WHEN. A front end above the back end means near-term event risk is being priced, a report, a decision, a catalyst inside the window. A flat or upward-sloping curve is the resting state: more time, more uncertainty, gently higher IV.

FAQ

What is MSFT's implied volatility right now?

25.4% at the money as of the latest session on file, measured across near-the-money contracts expiring 7-60 days out. The 90-day chart above carries the full recent path; the number refreshes with the weekly batch.

Is MSFT's IV high or low right now?

Judge it three ways: against its own recent path (the 90-day chart), against its own history (the monthly chart, where the latest month reads 27.2%), and against the benchmarks drawn on the same axes. For where the market's extremes sit, the high-IV board tracks the names pricing the biggest moves.

How is this measured?

From MSFT's near-the-money contracts (strikes within 5% of the stock price) at each session's close, keeping only contracts where the volatility solve converged; each value is the median, and thin sessions and months are dropped by the contract floors visible in each panel's SQL.

What moves MSFT's implied volatility?

Scheduled events load IV in advance and crush it after; realized turbulence raises it; calm grinds it down. The monthly history above is the record of exactly those cycles.

Every panel is a stored, versioned query over the full options tape, expand any panel to audit it, or measure any strike of MSFT's chain on the Strasmore terminal. If that chain is unfamiliar territory, the column-by-column walkthrough explains what the bid, ask, volume and IV fields each report. For the concept, start at what implied volatility is; for how strikes differ on the same stock, see volatility skew.