On most days a large company's share price drifts along with the rest of the market, a little up or a little down, and few people notice. On a handful of days each year it jumps or drops far more than the index. Those days usually come the morning after the company reports its results, and they shape much of what owning the share feels like.
Quote pages try to sum this up in one number, often labeled beta, and print it without saying how it was measured. Other sources say a stock "moves 10% on earnings" without saying over how many reports, or from which price. Two sites can show different numbers for the same share, and neither tells you how big a normal day is.
Volatility has standard measures that clear this up. The size of a typical daily move, scaled up to a year, shows how rough the ride is, and beta shows how much of that comes from the market. A record of past report days, along with the options market's price for the next one, shows how big the rare days get.
Meta Platforms is a share where all of these measures matter, because it has made some very large single-day moves in the sessions after its results. BloFin offers Meta as the METAX/USDT Spot pair, a token you hold, and the METAUSDT Perpetual, a leveraged contract, and both carry those swings.
What is Meta stock volatility?
Meta stock volatility is how far Meta's share price usually moves in a day, scaled up to a year. It is measured as the standard deviation of daily changes. Over the year to the October 22, 2026 close it was 42.6%, which works out to a typical day of about 2.69% up or down (source: Yahoo Finance META history).
The yearly figure is easier to picture as a single day. A typical move of 2.69% means a 1,000 USDT position that tracks Meta gains or loses about 26.86 USDT on an ordinary session. At the October 22 close of $648.85, such a day moves one share by about $17.43. In the past year, 199 of 251 sessions, or 79.3%, stayed inside that typical move (source: Yahoo Finance META history).
The other days are what make Meta feel rough. The share moved 3% or more on 43 sessions in that year, about one session in six, while the median day was much calmer at 1.28% (source: Yahoo Finance META history). Every day counts in the measure, so a few very large days can lift the yearly figure well past what most sessions look like.
Those large days usually trace back to a piece of news, and each kind of news is covered in what moves Meta's stock price. Volatility tells you how big the moves are. Beta asks how much of that size comes from the market as a whole.
Meta's beta against the S&P 500
Meta's beta against the S&P 500 is 1.18 on Yahoo Finance's five-year monthly measure at the October 22, 2026 close (source: Yahoo Finance META quote). That means Meta has tended to move about 1.18% for every 1% move in the index. The same calculation run on the 60 monthly moves from October 2021 to September 2026 also gives 1.18.
Beta changes with the window and with how often prices are sampled. On daily closes over the past year, Meta's beta is 1.51, and over five years of daily closes it is 1.63, measured against the index's daily closes (source: Yahoo Finance S&P 500 history). Each number is right for the question it answers, so a beta is only useful once you know its window.
Window | Prices used | Beta | Correlation with the S&P 500 | Meta's volatility divided by the S&P 500's |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Five years to September 30, 2026 | Monthly closes | 1.18 | 0.43 | 2.74 |
Five years to October 22, 2026 | Daily closes | 1.63 | 0.61 | 2.67 |
Two years to October 22, 2026 | Daily closes | 1.45 | 0.59 | 2.47 |
One year to October 22, 2026 | Daily closes | 1.51 | 0.45 | 3.34 |
Beta equals the correlation with the index, multiplied by the stock's volatility divided by the index's volatility.
That formula shows why Meta's beta can look modest while the share feels wild. Over the past year Meta swung 3.34 times as much as the S&P 500 on a typical day. Its daily moves lined up with the index's only loosely, though, at a correlation of 0.45, on a scale where a reading of 1 means perfect lockstep. Together those two give the beta of 1.51.
Squaring the correlation gives a rough share of Meta's daily movement that the market explains. Over the past year that share was 20.5%, about a fifth (source: Yahoo Finance S&P 500 history). The other four-fifths came from Meta's own news and the trading around it, which is why its beta sits so far below its volatility ratio to the index.
How much Meta stock moves after earnings reports
Meta stock moved an average of 10.7% by the next day's close after its last 21 quarterly reports, from October 2021 to October 2026. The median move was 8.6%, and the largest was a 26.4% fall on February 3, 2022 (source: Yahoo Finance META history). Each move is measured from the 4PM ET close on report day, the last regular-session price before the release.
Meta filed each of those results with the US Securities and Exchange Commission between 4PM and 5PM ET, after the regular session had closed (source: SEC filing list for Meta). That timing makes the report-day close a clean starting point, since the results were still unknown when it was set. The next session's close then captures the whole first-day reaction (source: Yahoo Finance META history).
The moves split almost evenly, ten up and eleven down, and ten of them were 10% or larger. An ordinary day over the same five years moved 1.71% on average, so a report day moved about 6.3 times as much. The S&P 500 moved just 1.1% on average on those same 21 sessions, which leaves almost all of each reaction to Meta's own results (source: Yahoo Finance S&P 500 history).
Report date | Next session | Meta's move by the close | S&P 500's move that session |
|---|---|---|---|
February 2, 2022 | February 3, 2022 | −26.4% | −2.4% |
April 27, 2022 | April 28, 2022 | +17.6% | +2.5% |
October 26, 2022 | October 27, 2022 | −24.6% | −0.6% |
February 1, 2023 | February 2, 2023 | +23.3% | +1.5% |
February 1, 2024 | February 2, 2024 | +20.3% | +1.1% |
All five of the largest reactions came between 2022 and early 2024. The first ten reports in the window averaged a move of 14.3%, and the latest eleven averaged 7.4%, so the reactions have shrunk. Even so, the five reports from October 2025 to October 2026 averaged 9.0% (source: Yahoo Finance META history). From Nasdaq's close until the next open, the METAUSDT Perpetual may accept only reduce-only orders (source: BloFin stock futures notice). A leveraged position held through a report night can be cut but not added to, as trading Meta around its earnings explains.
How much of Meta's volatility comes from report days
Five report days produced 23.4% of Meta's volatility over the past year, measured by their share of all squared daily moves. Take out those five sessions, out of 251, and Meta's yearly figure falls from 42.6% to 37.7% for the year to October 22, 2026 (source: Yahoo Finance META history).
Squaring each day's move is how the standard deviation weighs the days, so a 10% day counts a hundred times as much as a 1% day. That is how five sessions can carry almost a quarter of a year's swings. The five were October 30, 2025, and January 29, April 30, July 30 and October 22, 2026, each the session right after a report. A year usually holds four, but this one starts on October 22, 2025, so it catches the reactions to both October reports.
Even without them Meta stays a volatile stock, since 37.7% is still about three times the S&P 500's 12.8% over the same year (source: Yahoo Finance S&P 500 history). The split helps with planning. The report-day part of the risk lands on four dates a year that Meta announces in advance. The rest is spread across ordinary days and comes with no warning at all.
The options-implied move for Meta's October 21 report
On October 16, 2026, the options market priced a move of about 7.3% either way in Meta by October 23, sized for its third-quarter report (source: TipRanks). Meta published those results after the close on October 21 (source: Meta investor relations), and by the October 22 close the share had fallen 7.0%, a little less than the implied move (source: Yahoo Finance META history).
The implied move comes from a straddle, which is a call (the right to buy) and a put (the right to sell) bought at the same strike price. With Meta at $709.25, TipRanks priced the $710 call expiring on October 23 at $23.05 and the matching put at $28.69, so the pair cost $51.74 (source: TipRanks). Divide that cost by the share price and you get 7.3%. That is roughly the move the share would need by expiry for the pair to pay back its cost, and it measures the size of swing traders were paying for, with no view on direction.
The share opened 3.0% below the October 21 close and fell as far as 8.3% below it during the October 22 session, past the implied move, before closing 7.0% lower (source: Yahoo Finance META history). The S&P 500 lost 1.2% in the same session (source: Yahoo Finance S&P 500 history). By the October 23 expiry the share had closed at $642.62, 7.9% below the October 21 close and past the implied move (source: Yahoo Finance META history).
Set against the record, 7.3% sat below the median reaction of 9.5% across the 20 earlier reports. Twelve of the 21 reports from October 2021 to October 2026 moved the share by more than 7.3% by the next close, and five of the last eight did (source: Yahoo Finance META history). Option prices change by the minute, so an implied move only means something with its date and its source attached.
Past moves look back, while the implied move is the market's price for the report still to come, which makes the two a useful cross-check on each other. The October 2026 reaction is the 21st in that five-year record and the 13th-largest of them, and it pulled the average down from 10.9% to 10.7% and the median from 9.5% to 8.6% (source: Yahoo Finance META history). Meta's fourth-quarter 2026 report will add the 22nd.
Meta's volatility next to other big tech stocks
Meta has been the most volatile of six large US technology stocks over the past year. It ran at 42.6% a year against 37.7% for Nvidia and 24.1% for Apple, and more than three times the S&P 500's 12.8%, to the October 22, 2026 close (source: Yahoo Finance NVDA history) (source: Yahoo Finance AAPL history). Its five-year monthly beta of 1.18 sits in the middle of the group.
Nvidia carries the highest beta in the group, 2.22 on five years of monthly closes, so it has magnified the market's moves more than any of the others (source: Yahoo Finance NVDA history). Meta swung more than Nvidia over the past year with a lower beta. That fits a share whose biggest days come from its own results, a contrast traced in Meta against Nvidia stock.
Amazon has run nearest to Meta in the 63 sessions to October 22, 2026, at 42.6% against Meta's 47.5% (source: Yahoo Finance AMZN history) (source: Yahoo Finance META history). Microsoft's past-year daily beta of 1.04 is the nearest to the index's own 1.00, with volatility of 33.0% (source: Yahoo Finance MSFT history). Alphabet has calmed the most of the group in those 63 sessions, to 29.4% from 31.7% over the full year (source: Yahoo Finance GOOGL history).
Company | Annualized volatility, past year | Annualized volatility, 63 sessions to October 22, 2026 | Beta, past year of daily closes | Beta, five years of monthly closes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Meta | 42.6% | 47.5% | 1.51 | 1.18 |
Nvidia | 37.7% | 37.6% | 1.95 | 2.22 |
Amazon | 34.8% | 42.6% | 1.48 | 1.46 |
Microsoft | 33.0% | 38.9% | 1.04 | 1.10 |
Alphabet | 31.7% | 29.4% | 1.37 | 1.21 |
Apple | 24.1% | 24.3% | 0.60 | 1.07 |
S&P 500 index | 12.8% | 11.1% | 1.00 | 1.00 |
Apple is the calmest of the six, with a past-year daily beta of 0.60 (source: Yahoo Finance AAPL history), and Meta against Apple stock sets the two shares' records side by side. If you mostly hold crypto, Meta's past-year swings sit close to Bitcoin's (source: Yahoo Finance BTC-USD history), and Meta's link with Bitcoin shows how often the two move together.
Meta's trading volume and METAX spreads on volatile days
Meta stock traded about 19.8 million shares a day, worth about $12.9 billion, over the 63 sessions to October 22, 2026 (source: Yahoo Finance META history). On the session after each of the past year's five reports, that count at least doubled.
Over the past year, the session after each report traded between 2.1 and 7.2 times the average of the 20 sessions before it. The largest jump came on October 30, 2025, when 88.4 million shares changed hands, and about 40.5 million did on October 22, 2026 (source: Yahoo Finance META history). Volume like that shows how many buyers and sellers act at once when the price resets, and in the share itself even large orders find someone on the other side.
METAX/USDT is a far smaller market than the share it tracks. Early on October 23 UTC, after the report-day fall, it showed about 279,100 USDT of turnover over the previous 24 hours. The spread, from the top bid to the cheapest ask, moved between 0.71 and 1.39 USDT within two minutes, about 0.11% to 0.22% of the price. A market order pays part of that spread on top of the price move.
On a volatile day that cost adds up, because a fast move and a wide gap can both work against the same order. A limit order sets the most you will pay or the least you will accept. For how deep the METAX order book runs through a trading day, see METAX liquidity and slippage.
Before a trade, the METAX/USDT Spot page shows the live bids, asks and spread, while the METAUSDT Perpetual market lists the contract's price beside its funding rate.
Sizing a Meta position to its volatility
Sizing to volatility means matching a Meta position to the swing you can accept. Meta's typical day was 3.34 times the S&P 500's over the past year, so 1,000 USDT in Meta swung like about 3,344 USDT in an S&P 500 index fund. Turned around, about 299 USDT of Meta carried the daily swing of 1,000 USDT in the index.
Volatility-matched size is the amount in the index divided by Meta's volatility ratio to the index.
The ratio comes from the typical days themselves: 2.69% for Meta against 0.80% for the S&P 500, from the same year of daily closes (source: Yahoo Finance S&P 500 history). Say a 1,000 USDT index position already feels like your limit. A Meta position of about 299 USDT carries a similar day-to-day swing, and a report night can still move it by several typical days at once.
Leverage changes how much margin backs the same swing. The METAUSDT Perpetual offers leverage up to 20x (source: BloFin METAUSDT contract details). At 20x your margin is 5% of the position, less than two typical Meta days, and at 10x it is 10%, a little under four. Meta's 21-report average reaction of 10.7% is larger than the whole margin at either level.
Liquidation comes before the margin is fully gone, because BloFin holds back part of it as maintenance margin. Trading Meta with leverage shows how that sets the liquidation price at each level. A volatility-based plan uses the typical day for an ordinary weekday and the record of past earnings reactions for a position held through a report. A position held over a weekend also has to absorb the gap between Friday's close and Monday's open, while the perpetual may take only reduce-only orders until Nasdaq reopens (source: BloFin stock futures notice).
Looking to trade Meta with its volatility in mind? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and go to the METAX/USDT Spot trading page or the METAUSDT Perpetual trading page.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Meta's beta differ from one website to another?
Each site picks its own end date, data frequency and market index, and a small change in any of them moves the result. Stock Analysis shows Meta's five-year beta as 1.19 at the October 22, 2026 close, one hundredth above Yahoo Finance's 1.18 (source: Stock Analysis). A beta built from daily prices can differ far more, so check the window before you compare two figures.
How is a stock's annualized volatility calculated?
Take the percentage change from each closing price to the next, and work out the standard deviation of those changes. Then scale it up by the square root of 252, roughly the count of trading days in a year. Meta's daily standard deviation of 2.69% times about 15.87 gives roughly 42.6%. The same method works for any window, from a month to five years.
Does Meta stock move more after bad earnings or good earnings?
Meta's rises and falls after reports have been close in size. Across the 21 reports from October 2021 to October 2026, the ten rises averaged 11.2% by the next close and the eleven falls averaged 10.3% (source: Yahoo Finance META history). The two largest single reactions were both falls, of 26.4% in February 2022 and 24.6% in October 2022.
Does METAX have the same volatility as Meta stock?
METAX follows Meta's share price, and it also trades through weekday hours when Nasdaq is shut, as METAX trading hours against Nasdaq's sets out. In the 24 hours to early October 23 UTC, METAX/USDT traded between 643.29 and 706.96 USDT on BloFin, a range of 9.90%. The share's own October 22 session ranged 6.47% (source: Yahoo Finance META history). Its price can also drift briefly from the perpetual's, for reasons set out in why METAX and the perpetual disagree on price.
What is a good beta for a stock?
Beta has no good or bad level by itself. A beta of 1 means a stock has tended to move about 1% for each 1% move in the market. A beta below 1 means a smaller response to the market's moves, and a beta above 1 means a larger one. A beta near zero means the stock and the market have barely moved together, and a negative beta means they have tended to move in opposite directions.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Yahoo Finance daily prices and volume for Meta, the S&P 500, Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Bitcoin, Yahoo Finance and Stock Analysis statistics pages, Meta's results filing list and filing records at the US Securities and Exchange Commission and its third-quarter 2026 results release, and TipRanks' October 16, 2026 options report. BloFin's sources are its METAX/USDT Spot page, METAUSDT contract details page and stock futures notice, current as of October 25, 2026.
Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Meta in any form. Meta's share has moved by more than 20% in a single session after four of the 21 reports from October 2021 to October 2026, and an implied move is only the options market's price for the next swing, so the actual move can be larger. A METAX holding can lose that much in a day, and a leveraged METAUSDT position can be liquidated by a move smaller than one report-day reaction. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.