IV rank and IV percentile calculator
Is 38% IV high or low? For one stock it's a calm day. For another it's a storm. Type in today's IV and the year's high and low, paste the daily readings if you have them, and see where today really sits.
How it works: IV rank places today's implied volatility between the year's lowest and highest readings: (today − low) ÷ (high − low) × 100. A rank of 0 means today is the year's low, 100 means it's the year's high. IV percentile counts days instead: the share of the pasted days when IV was lower than today. A full year is about 252 trading days. Both are ways to answer one question: is IV high or low for this stock?
Why rank and percentile disagree
Rank only looks at two days: the highest and the lowest. One wild week can set a high that IV never gets near again. After that, today's IV looks low on rank for months, even when it's higher than most days of the year. Percentile counts every day, so one spike barely moves it. When the two disagree by a lot, look at the list: a lone spike or a lone dip is usually the reason. See IV rank for picking stocks to sell options on.
What high IV does and doesn't tell you
High IV means option prices are rich for this stock. Sellers collect more. But IV is high for a reason: the market expects something, like earnings, a lawsuit or a big drop. High IV doesn't tell you which way the stock goes. It tells you the market expects a bigger move than usual. In the wheel strategy, a high rank is a reason to look closer, not a reason to sell. Ask why first.
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