Earnings night on-chain: how Tesla, Nvidia, Microsoft and other stock perps react before Wall Street opens

Why earnings nights matter

Earnings reports are among the biggest scheduled events for any stock. All seven companies in this study report after the US market closes at 4 pm New York time, usually followed by a conference call around 4:30 or 5 pm. Until recently, the reaction played out in after-hours trading – which is thin and unavailable to many investors outside the US – and then in a jump at the next morning's open.

Stock perpetual futures on Hyperliquid (trade.xyz) and other venues now trade through that whole window, open to anyone with crypto collateral. We wanted to see how they behave on these nights: how much trading they attract, how quickly they find the "right" price, and whether their first move can be trusted.

The reports we studied

We used every earnings report from Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla between April and October 2026 – 19 in total, with report dates taken from a public earnings calendar. For each one we tracked the perp price from the 4 pm close through the evening, the night and pre-market, and compared it with the official opening price the next morning and the price over the following days.

Volume explodes after the close

On a normal weekday evening, stock perps are quiet. On earnings nights they are not. From 4 pm to 8 pm, perp dollar volume was a median of 37 times the volume in the same hours over the previous 20 days. The busiest night was Nvidia's report on 26 August 2026, at about 100 times normal; Microsoft's July report reached 59 times and Alphabet's July report 73 times.

The first hour is noisy

The chart compares, for each report, the perp's move one hour after the close (5 pm), its move by 8 pm, and the stock's actual opening gap the next morning. In most cases the bars point the same way – but not always.

In 14 of the 19 reports (74%), the perp was already on the right side of the opening gap at 5 pm. In the other five it was not. Three were sharp reversals:

• Meta, 21 October 2026: the perp was up 5.2% at 5 pm, but Meta opened 3.0% lower and closed the next day down 7.0%.
• Tesla, 22 April 2026: up 4.2% at 5 pm; opened 3.2% lower.
• Amazon, 29 April 2026: down 3.5% at 5 pm; opened 3.9% higher.

The other two were small first-hour moves in the wrong direction: Apple on 30 April (−0.5% at 5 pm, opened +2.8%) and Tesla on 21 October (+0.5%, opened −3.2%).

The first hour after a report contains the headline numbers but not the full picture. Guidance, margins and comments on the conference call can change the market's view, and in these cases they did.

Converging on the opening price

By 6 pm the perp pointed the right way in 18 of 19 reports (95%). The median distance between the perp and the eventual opening gap fell from 3.3 percentage points at 5 pm to about 2 points at 6–8 pm, 1.9 points at 4 am and just 0.5 points at 9 am. In effect, the perps did much of the price discovery that used to happen only in thin after-hours trading and at the open.

Big surprises: the perp under-reacts at first

On the largest moves, the first-hour reaction was usually too small:

• Microsoft, 29 July 2026: +3.0% at 5 pm, +8.8% at 8 pm, opened +12.1%, closed the next day +15.5%, and was +24.8% after five trading days.
• Amazon, 30 July 2026: +8.1% at 5 pm, opened +12.5%, closed +15.3%.
• Tesla, 22 July 2026: −2.4% at 5 pm, −4.1% at 8 pm, opened −8.8%, closed −14.5% and was −20.2% after five days.
• Alphabet, 28 October 2026: −8.4% at 5 pm, opened −11.7%.

Only four of the 19 first-hour moves were larger than the opening gap.

The move often continues after the open

Once the regular session opened, the stock kept moving in the direction of its opening gap in 13 of 19 reports (68%). The median move from the report-day close to the next day's close was 7.1% – a reminder of how large earnings reactions in these mega-cap stocks have become.

What this means

1. Stock perps are now an active venue on earnings nights, with volume many times normal.
2. The first hour can mislead – in four of 19 cases it pointed the wrong way – but within two to three hours the perp usually reflects the market's verdict.
3. By the next morning the perp gives a very close preview of the opening price.
4. On the biggest surprises, both the perp and the stock tended to keep moving after the first reaction.

Nineteen reports is a small sample, and every company and quarter is different. For live levels, volatility ranges and upcoming events on these stocks, see our Microsoft, Tesla and Nvidia pages.