Three of the most closely watched names in enterprise tech report earnings within hours of each other today. Dell Technologies, Palo Alto Networks and MongoDB all release results after the market close on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, and the options market is treating at least one of them as close to a coin flip.
What is happening with Dell, Palo Alto Networks and MongoDB tonight?
Dell, Palo Alto Networks and MongoDB all report quarterly results after Tuesday's close. Dell posts fiscal second-quarter 2027 numbers, Palo Alto closes out its fiscal 2026 year, and MongoDB reports fiscal second-quarter 2027 results. All three earnings calls land the same evening, an unusual overlap for three companies this large.
Dell's call is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET and MongoDB's for 5:00 p.m. ET. All three stocks have run hard into the print: Dell closed Monday at $456.01, up more than 275% year to date on AI server demand, MongoDB is up 42% over the past year with another 12% added just this week (OpticAlpha terminal), and Palo Alto trades near its 52-week high heading into its own report.
How big a move are options pricing for Dell?
Options tied to Dell's Friday expiry price roughly an 11% move in either direction once the company reports. The at-the-money straddle, a call and a put at the same strike, cost about $52 against Monday's $456.01 close. On a stock with a roughly $295 billion market cap, that is a wide band for a single print to resolve.
That 11% figure comes from options data compiled by Bloomberg and reported by Investing.com, with the $52 straddle price confirmed separately against Monday's close. Dell's own options chain, live on the OpticAlpha terminal, shows IV rank at 58.9% and put open interest of 401,900 contracts against 325,720 calls heading into the print, a modestly put-heavy skew for a stock that has mostly gone straight up this year.
What is Dell expected to report, and what actually moves the stock?
Consensus calls for Dell to report adjusted earnings near $4.91 a share on revenue of roughly $44.5 billion, inside the company's own guided range. The number that decides where the stock opens Wednesday is AI server revenue, guided near $15.5 billion and the single line item driving this year's rally.
Dell guided to revenue of $44 billion to $45 billion for the quarter, adjusted earnings around $4.80 a share, and roughly $15.5 billion of AI server revenue when it last reported. Consensus has since drifted to $4.91 a share on revenue estimates clustered between $44.5 billion and $45.1 billion. AI server orders and backlog, not the headline EPS beat or miss, are what the market is actually pricing through that $52 straddle.
Why is Palo Alto Networks' revenue growing four times faster than its earnings?
Analysts expect Palo Alto's fiscal fourth-quarter revenue to grow 32% year over year while adjusted earnings grow only about 3%. That gap is the platform-shift story in one line: Palo Alto is bundling AI security features into its platform faster than that revenue is dropping to the bottom line.
The Zacks consensus calls for revenue of $3.35 billion, up 32.1% from a year ago, against non-GAAP earnings of $0.98 a share, up just 3.2%. Palo Alto has beaten the Zacks consensus estimate in each of the past four quarters by an average of 7.03%, so the real question tonight is guidance, not the print itself.
On the OpticAlpha terminal, Palo Alto's own options chain shows IV rank at 61.2%, in the 84.5th percentile of the past year, with call and put open interest almost dead even at 303,350 and 302,080 contracts. The term structure is inverted, near-dated volatility priced above the 365-day level, the standard signature of a market bracing for one specific event rather than drifting risk.
What is MongoDB's setup going into its own print?
MongoDB reports fiscal second-quarter 2027 results with consensus calling for revenue near $730 million and earnings around $1.62 a share. The stock has run 42% over the past year and another 12% in the last week alone, a hot run into a binary event.
Consensus puts the revenue range at $729 million to $734 million. That momentum has outpaced most valuation models: OpticAlpha's research overview puts MongoDB's fair-value estimate near $328 a share against Monday's $453 close, and the median of 22 analyst price targets, at $446, actually sits below today's price even though 21 of those 22 analysts still rate the stock a buy. Momentum and valuation are pointing in opposite directions the same week the company reports.
What does the ISM Manufacturing PMI due at 10am ET add to the picture?
The ISM Manufacturing PMI for August is due at 10:00 a.m. ET Tuesday, hours before Wall Street's cash open reaction fully sets in and hours before any of the three earnings prints. Forecasters expect a small step down to roughly 55.0 to 55.2 from July's 55.6, which would still mark an eighth straight month of expansion.
The 10:00 a.m. ET release will show whether that forecast holds. July's reading of 55.6 was the strongest since May 2022. A softer but still-expansionary August print would land on a morning where U.S. equity futures are already lower on renewed Iran-linked tension in the Strait of Hormuz and rising bond yields, adding a second data point to a session that already has plenty riding on it before the closing bell.
What should traders watch after the print?
The first thirty minutes of after-hours trading, immediately following each release, is usually where the real move gets set before it extends or fades into Wednesday's open. With three unrelated businesses reporting the same evening, correlation in the initial reaction (or the lack of it) is itself informative.
An 11% implied move on a $294.65 billion company is not a rounding error. It is the options market saying this print carries more binary risk than Dell's chart, up more than 275% this year, would suggest on its own. Palo Alto's inverted term structure and MongoDB's below-price median target say something similar in their own instruments: all three are priced for a real outcome tonight, not a formality.
Track live options flow and IV data at opticalpha.net/terminal. 14-day free trial, no credit card required.