QQQ Implied Volatility: IV Now & Its History

QQQ (the Nasdaq-100 ETF) carries the benchmark chain for large-cap tech. This page tracks QQQ'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.

QQQ 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 = 'QQQ'
  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 QQQ's near-the-money contracts (strikes within 5% of the stock, expiring one week to two months out). The latest reading is 19.2%. 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.

QQQ IV history vs the market, month by month

SELECT toString(toStartOfMonth(date)) AS month,
       round(100 * quantileExactIf(0.5)(implied_volatility, underlying_symbol = 'QQQ'), 1) AS qqq_iv_pct,
       round(100 * quantileExactIf(0.5)(implied_volatility, underlying_symbol = 'SPY'), 1) AS spy_iv_pct
FROM global_markets.options_greeks
WHERE underlying_symbol IN ('QQQ', 'SPY')
  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 = 'QQQ') >= 50
ORDER BY month

The chart is QQQ's fear gauge over time, drawn against the market's own. The SPY line carries the same measurement for the market's benchmark chain, the latest month reads 19.9% for QQQ against 12.7% for SPY. 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 QQQ'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: QQQ 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 = 'QQQ'
  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 QQQ's implied volatility right now?

19.2% 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 QQQ'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 19.9%), 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 QQQ'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. Each of those contracts carries its own IV figure in the quoted chain, so reading a chain column by column shows exactly which numbers these medians are built from.

What moves QQQ'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 QQQ's chain on the Strasmore terminal. For the concept, start at what implied volatility is; for how strikes differ on the same stock, see volatility skew.