Microsoft (MSFT)

Is protection on Microsoft cheap or dear today, where has the money been placed, how did the past month play out, and how did the judgments we filed on Microsoft settle? Updated after every close, with right and wrong judgments alike left on the record.

Data date 10.07 · close 530.1 (—) · −3.67% from the 52-week high

Where it stands today

One-year IV percentile74 / 100

Where one-month protection (30-day implied volatility) sits within its past-year range, 0 the cheapest and 100 the dearest. Protection on Microsoft is now in the pricier part of the past year.

30-day / one-year implied vol (%)32.28 / 31.64

The two are about level: nothing near-term is being priced on its own.

Expected move this week±1.6% ±8.71

Centred on the previous close of 529.3, option prices imply 520.59 to 538.01 at this week's expiry. A close outside it at expiry means the option sellers lose.

Put ÷ call (volume / open interest)0.45 / 0.57

Calls outtraded puts. It counts contracts, not direction: a put buyer may be insuring shares they own.

Levels from high to low, with distance from the close:

Call wall	550	+3.75%	The strike with the most call open interest: an upside target someone has already made a down payment on.
Expected move, high	538.01	+1.49%	Centred on the previous close: the implied top at this week's expiry.
Close	530.1
Expected move, low	520.59	−1.79%	Centred on the previous close: the implied bottom at this week's expiry.
Put wall	500	−5.68%	The strike with the most put open interest: protection someone already paid for.
Flip level	462.22	−12.81%	Above it, dealer hedging damps moves; below it, hedging amplifies them.

Data date 10.07. Updated once after each trading day's close; spot is the official close.

The last 30 trading days

Close, flip level, put wall and call wall, day by day: which side of the walls price is on, and whether the walls moved.

One-year and 30-day implied vol, day by day. The short line jumping while the long line holds means only the near-term event is being repriced; the long line rising too means the whole story is.

Shown: the last 30 trading days. Earlier records are in Chapter V (walls) and Chapter VII (implied vol) of the options page.

III

Today's big prints

No Microsoft contract made today's leaderboard.

Data date only. The board for every name is in Chapter IV of the options page.

Valuation and profitability

P/E (TTM)

28.6

Forward P/E

21.9

P/S

11.6

P/B

8.7

ROE

34.0%

Gross margin

67.9%

Net margin

40.3%

Dividend yield

0.76%

The latest P/E (2026.10.02) is 28.8, the 50th percentile of 121 readings since 1995 (0 is the cheapest in that history, 100 the dearest; past readings are taken at quarter-ends). Microsoft is compared only with its own past.

At the latest quarter-end: ROE 33.2% (2026.06.30), ROIC 30.0% (2026.06.30).

As of 2026.10.03, updated weekly. Full profit, return, valuation and dividend charts are in the Tech stock view.

Every case we filed on it

Each judgment is written down with its test before the fact, settled by that test, and left standing when wrong. These are all the cases that name Microsoft, none removed. Open one for the original filing.

1cases since 08.19

1settled

0open

08.19The nine MSFT call strikes expiring 08-28 are newly opened rather than churn, and they form the most concentrated cluster of bets on the dayThe call was wrong and is withdrawn

Settlement
The call was wrong and is withdrawn. That cluster was not a directional bet but a dividend-capture trade, on four independent pieces of evidence. First, MSFT's ex-dividend date was 2026-08-20 ($0.91 per share, declared 06-10, record date 08-20, payable 09-10), and the trades printed at 14:37 on 08-19 — exactly the day before. Second, all eight strikes, 390 through 435, were deep in the money with the stock around 483. Third, all eight carried the same 14:37 timestamp, making this one order rather than nine. Fourth, the open interest then went to almost nothing: on the morning of 08-28 the quote feed showed 20 contracts left at 390C against 600 on 08-19, 9 at 415C against 2,219, and 26 at 435C against 1,673 — a cleaner outcome than the volume-below-open-interest threshold the original test asked for.

Original filing and test, archived verbatim in Chinese

08.19 Filed (confidence: Leaning)
微软 08-28 到期的九档看涨是新开仓不是换手，且是当日最集中的一组下注（一个日期、一个方向、约 1.15 亿美元）
Test: 到 08-28 到期前，若这九档的成交量掉回持仓量以下（vol/OI < 1）则说明是当天来回而非新建仓，本判断收回。只引每日UOA短打异常.csv 的 vol_oi 列

08.28 Settled (confidence: Leaning)
微软 08-28 到期的九档看涨是新开仓不是换手，且是当日最集中的一组下注（一个日期、一个方向、约 1.15 亿美元）——终审
Test: 到 08-28 到期前，若这九档的成交量掉回持仓量以下（vol/OI < 1）则说明是当天来回而非新建仓，本判断收回。只引每日UOA短打异常.csv 的 vol_oi 列
Result: 判断错误，收回。那批不是方向性下注，是股息套利。四条独立证据：①微软除息日为 2026-08-20（每股 0.91 美元，06-10 公告，记录日 08-20，付息日 09-10），而该批成交在 08-19 14:37，正好除息前一天；②八档行权价 390 到 435 全部深度价内，当时正股在 483 一线；③八档成交时间戳同为 14:37，是一笔而非九笔；④持仓随后归零，08-28 今晨行情尺读数 390C 剩 20 张（08-19 为 600）、415C 剩 9 张（08-19 为 2,219）、435C 剩 26 张（08-19 为 1,673），比原判据要求的 vol/OI<1 更彻底。

Cases for every name are in Chapter III of the options page. The ledger is append-only; a revision is a new row.