Quick definition
The market's forward-looking estimate of how much an underlying is expected to move, extracted from live options prices. Implied volatility is an output of the pricing model, not an input the trader sets.
IV is priced, not predicted
IV is not a forecast the trader believes or disbelieves — it is a market-clearing price. When traders say "IV is elevated," they mean options are collectively bid up relative to historical baselines. Whether that elevation is justified is a separate question and the entire basis of vol trading.
Skew and term structure
IV is not a single number per symbol — it varies by strike (skew) and by expiration (term structure). Downside puts typically carry higher IV than equidistant upside calls because index tail risk is priced. Front-month IV often trades above back-month IV during stress and below back-month IV during calm periods.
How Treeova uses it
Every agent operating on Treeova sees the full IV surface, not just an at-the-money print. Arch-AGI's volatility lens compares current IV against the symbol's own historical IV Rank and IV Percentile before scoring a setup — the same nominal 30% IV means very different things on a low-vol utility stock and on a mid-cap biotech.