- JNJ closed -5.7% on the reaction session after Johnson and Johnson's Oct 13, 2026 earnings report, against a ±3.4% implied move.
- Johnson and Johnson has moved ±3.3% on average at the peak of earnings day over the last 10 years; the median is ±3.1% and the 95th percentile ±6.6%.
- JNJ's actual earnings move exceeded what options had priced in 11 of its last 17 reports (65%).
- Last report (Oct 13, 2026): options priced ±3.6%, the stock closed -5.7%.
Timeline: what happens when
| When | What | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Tue Oct 6 | IV ramp window opens | The five sessions before a report are where JNJ's implied volatility has historically climbed; the ramp chart below shows the last one. |
| Tue Oct 13 | JNJ reports before market open | before the 9:30 am ET open. The implied move on this page is frozen at the last pre-print reading. |
| Tue Oct 13 | Reaction session | The move that counts against the implied is measured at this session's close, off the pre-report close. |
| Tue Oct 13 | This page updates with the result | Only after the session has closed — a realised move is not published before it is real. |
| Fri Oct 16 | +3 sessions | First drift checkpoint: has the reaction held, faded or extended? |
| Thu Oct 22 | +7 sessions | Second checkpoint; the drift chart below shows how the last two reports travelled. |
Dates are NYSE sessions; a market holiday shifts the post-print rows by a day. Report timing is the company's scheduled slot and can change — this page refreshes daily.
What options priced vs what JNJ has done
JNJ's last five reports: priced vs happened
| Report | Options priced | Close move | Peak move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 13, 2026 | ±3.6% | -5.7% | -7.0% |
| Jul 15, 2026 | ±3.3% | -2.7% | -3.1% |
| Apr 14, 2026 | ±3.5% | +0.9% | -2.0% |
| Jan 21, 2026 | ±3.4% | -0.1% | -3.5% |
| Oct 14, 2025 | ±3.3% | +0.0% | -2.6% |
Full 10-year table and the live number all season: JNJ implied-move page · season-wide scoreboard: Q3 implied-vs-actual tracker.
The EarningsWatcher Lens on JNJ
Where the priced move sits. Options priced ±3.4%. Against JNJ's own ten-year record of earnings-day peak moves, that is above the median (±3.1%) but inside what the last ten years treated as ordinary — the 80th-percentile line is ±4.3%.
Recent versus long history. For JNJ, the recent regime is louder than the long one: ±3.9% over the last two years against ±3.3% over ten. Today's priced move is between the two — under the two-year figure, over the ten-year one.
The base rate. In the 17 JNJ reports with a recorded implied move, the realised peak exceeded what options had priced 11 times (65%) — history here has favoured the buyers of movement. That is a description of the past, not a forecast of this print.
The last print. Oct 13, 2026: options priced ±3.6%; the stock closed -5.7% with an intraday peak of -7.0% — outside the priced range.
What this does not say. None of the above carries a direction. The implied move is the size of the move options are pricing, in either direction, and the history is how big past moves were — not which way the next one goes.
Free to quote with attribution: EarningsWatcher, October 30, 2026 · earnings-watcher.com/wiki/jnj-earnings-october-2026
The week before: JNJ's IV rush
That climb is tradeable — and it ends at the print. How members play it: the IV Rush Radar draws JNJ's live IV against its typical ramp with three entry signals and a projected straddle. Free breakdown: JNJ before earnings.
The weeks after: does the move hold?
The reaction close is the start, not the story — DriftLab scores JNJ's follow-through, gap-fill odds and drift strength for members. Free breakdown: JNJ after earnings.
- Simulator — build the exact JNJ position and see its likelihood of success and risk/reward against ten years of reactions, with real IV crush modelled
- IV Rush Radar — JNJ's live pre-earnings IV curve, three snapshot signals, projected straddle
- DriftLab — follow-through, gap-fill and drift scores for the days after
- Data Picks — the week's scored ideas across five strategies, JNJ week included
Sources and method
- Implied move — EarningsWatcher's live options data for JNJ: the move the at-the-money straddle prices into the report, read daily and frozen at the last pre-print reading. As of October 30, 2026.
- Historical moves — the Moves Analyzer's per-release record for JNJ: 40 reports over ten years, measured as the peak intraday move on earnings day (the app's default view) and the reaction-session close, both off the pre-report close.
- Implied-vs-actual history — 17 reports with a recorded implied move, from the same dataset; the "beat the implied" count compares the realised peak with the priced move.
- Report date and timing — Johnson and Johnson's scheduled release slot as tracked by EarningsWatcher; confirmed with the company's investor-relations materials where available.
- Method — how EarningsWatcher measures implied and realised moves · how the implied move is calculated.
Updates
- Sep 29, 2026 — Published ahead of the report; implied move and history refresh daily until the print.
- Oct 30, 2026 — Result recorded. Options had priced ±3.4%; JNJ closed -5.7% on the reaction session (peak -7.0%) — outside the priced range.
Frequently asked questions
When was JNJ's October 2026 earnings report?
Johnson and Johnson reported on Oct 13, 2026, before market open. JNJ closed -5.7% on the reaction session against a ±3.4% implied move.
What is the expected move for JNJ earnings?
Options had priced a ±3.4% move (the implied move) for the Oct 13, 2026 report. For context, JNJ's 10-year average peak move is ±3.3%, the median ±3.1% and the 95th-percentile tail ±6.6%.
Will JNJ beat earnings — can this page predict the move?
No page can predict direction, and this one does not try. What is measurable: how big a move options had priced, how that compared with what actually happened in each past report (11 of 17 beat the implied), and how the stock has behaved before and after prints. Decision tools — the simulator's likelihood of success, the IV Rush signals, DriftLab's follow-through scores — are for EarningsWatcher members.
What usually happens to JNJ stock after earnings?
Over its tracked reports JNJ's earnings-day close averaged ±2.2% with the biggest single-day close at +6.2%. The day-by-day record — and whether moves follow through or fade — is on the JNJ after-earnings page and in DriftLab.