Stock-Movement Candidates for Options Research

Use Next-Day Movers to define a small research universe, then ask whether each candidate's options were rich or cheap and whether earnings history changes the interpretation.

Alphanume's Next-Day Movers dataset publishes a model-ranked set of liquid optionable equities with elevated potential for movement in the following trading session. The selection predicts magnitude, not direction. A candidate can rise, fall, or finish quietly, and the API makes no recommendation about buying or selling options.

That narrow output is useful for options research because it reduces a large universe before contract economics are considered. The second step is separate: use IV/HV Premium for current relative volatility pricing, use Earnings Move History for prior event context, and test a defined structure with prices, spreads, and execution assumptions from an options source.

Keep the three questions separate

A mover that also has a high iv_hv_ratio is a movement candidate with relatively rich implied volatility under that measure. It is not automatically a short-volatility trade because jump risk, skew, term structure, earnings timing, and transaction costs can dominate the simple ratio. A low ratio is equally incomplete as a long-volatility thesis.

Respect the publication clocks

New mover selections publish daily at 3:30 PM New York time and remain fixed. The newest return and absolute_move fields stay null until the following session completes. Those outcome fields belong to evaluation and cannot enter the selection rule.

IV/HV Premium updates provisionally during the session, with is_final=0, and settles around 4:30 PM with is_final=1. A backtest that joins the settled same-date row to a 3:30 PM trade leaks later information. Use a saved 3:30 PM provisional snapshot for that decision clock, or move the decision after settlement and model execution no earlier than the next eligible session.

Pull a fixed research slice

Retrieve each dataset over the same completed date range, then join mover and IV/HV rows on date and ticker. Earnings history should be joined as prior ticker-level context using only events resolved before the decision timestamp.

import os
import requests

headers = {"X-API-Key": os.environ["ALPHANUME_API_KEY"]}
base = "https://api.alphanume.com/v1"
window = {"date_gte": "2026-04-01", "date_lte": "2026-06-30"}

movers = requests.get(
    f"{base}/next-day-movers", headers=headers, params=window, timeout=30
).json()["data"]

premium = requests.get(
    f"{base}/iv-hv-premium",
    headers=headers,
    params={**window, "only_final": "true"},
    timeout=30,
).json()["data"]

earnings = requests.get(
    f"{base}/earnings-move-history", headers=headers, params=window, timeout=30
).json()["data"]

Check response status before reading data in production, save the raw payloads, and report join coverage. The earnings query above provides events inside the window for audit. A prior-history feature needs earlier events and a strict cutoff on reaction_date, rather than a retrospective statistic copied from a later row.

Define an options hypothesis

One defensible study compares next-session absolute movement with the same-date settled IV/HV ratio among published mover candidates, using next-session execution because the settled value arrives after the options close. Predefine ratio buckets, the primary movement outcome, and whether earnings-adjacent observations form a separate cohort.

The endpoint does not provide option-chain bids, asks, strikes, greeks, skew, or realized strategy P&L. If the hypothesis concerns straddles or spreads, source actual point-in-time contracts and state the selection, fill, expiration, assignment, and exit rules. Underlying absolute_move is an evaluation target, not an option return.

Audit the failure modes

• Direction error. Elevated movement likelihood does not identify calls versus puts.
• Outcome leakage. Newest mover returns remain null because the next session has not finished.
• Settlement leakage. Final same-day IV/HV values were unavailable at the 3:30 PM selection time.
• Event-calendar gap. Earnings history is not an upcoming earnings calendar.
• Tradability gap. Dataset membership does not guarantee acceptable option spreads, depth, or fills.

Free access provides a trailing 20-trading-session window ending one session behind the latest observation. That window can validate a join but cannot support a multi-regime options claim. The proof page reports product-specific evidence and does not establish that this three-dataset combination earns an options premium.

Run one frozen candidate study

Start with the Next-Day Movers guide, pull one completed quarter, and export mover selections, settled IV/HV rows, prior earnings context, missing joins, and the decision-clock specification. Compare signed return, absolute movement, and IV/HV buckets without converting the screen into a trade claim.

Then add one options dataset and test one predefined structure under next-session execution. Keep every selected ticker in the denominator, including missing or untradeable contracts, and publish those exclusions separately. That single audit is a more useful next action than trying several structures and retaining the best result.