Sea Limited (SE) Earnings August 11: Options Price a 19% Move, and Nobody Agrees on the Number

Updated August 11 with reported results. The preview said the EPS headline was the least informative number on this print and to watch the Shopee GMV guide instead; the market agreed, and paid up on revenue even with GAAP EPS below the site's tracked consensus.

TL;DR

• Sea Limited reported Q2 2026 revenue of $7.8 billion, up 48.1% from a year earlier, beating this preview's tracked $7.09bn consensus by roughly 10%, and accelerating slightly from Q1's 47% growth rather than decelerating.
• GAAP diluted EPS was $0.70 (basic $0.72), below the $0.86 adjusted consensus this preview logged; the company disclosed no separate non-GAAP EPS figure, so the "$0.86 beat" figure some aggregators are carrying does not reconcile to the primary release and should be treated skeptically.
• Shopee GMV reached $38.3 billion, up 28.4%, comfortably ahead of the ~25% full-year guide pace management set. Monee's loan book grew to $11.1 billion, up 62.5%, with non-performing loans stable at 1.0%. Garena bookings were $763.5 million, up 15.5%, a deceleration from Q1's 20% but not a red flag on its own.
• Net income was $458.1 million, up 10.6%, and adjusted EBITDA ran at 56.3% of bookings, up from 55.7% a year ago; management reiterated it is on track for $1 billion of Shopee adjusted EBITDA for the full year.
• Shares closed the regular session up 13.64% at $130.52, having opened roughly 9% higher; the guide held, and the revenue-not-EPS thesis this preview argued for played out exactly. The buy-or-wait call from before the print is in the decision piece.

The Board

All three engines beat their Q1 growth pace on GMV, held on credit quality, and the market paid for it despite a soft GAAP EPS print.

When Does Sea Limited Report Earnings?

Tuesday, August 11, 2026, before the US market opens, with the conference call at 7:30am ET. Sea confirmed the date itself, so unlike half the mid-caps on the earnings calendar this one is a fixture, not a projection.

It lands in the middle of a dense week: CoreWeave and Super Micro report the same day after the close, which we covered in the CoreWeave preview and the Super Micro preview, and CAVA joins them. Sea is the only one of the four that prints before the bell, so it sets Tuesday's tone for growth names.

What the Market Expects

Consensus, per the figures we verified for the calendar on August 6: $0.86 of adjusted EPS on $7.09bn of revenue for the quarter to June. Treat the EPS number gently. Only five analysts make up that average and their estimates run from $0.74 to $1.00, a 35% gap between the bottom and the top. Some compilers quote the average nearer $0.83. When the published "expected" number is this soft, the reaction is less about beating it and more about what the quarter says about the year.

Our computed whisper sits at $0.81, five cents below consensus. Two things drive that: estimates drifted down over the past month, and Sea has a habit of landing under the sell-side number, with a median EPS surprise of -4.9% across the last four quarters. That habit is not a scandal. Sea keeps choosing growth spend over printing a clean bottom-line beat, and the stock rose 6.8% after the Q1 report anyway, as investors rewarded the growth. But it means the "beat or miss" headline on Tuesday morning may mislead you about how the stock actually opens.

The Q1 Baseline: Three Engines, All Running

The first quarter is the bar Q2 has to clear on trend, and it was a monster: revenue up 47% year on year to $7.1bn, and adjusted EBITDA above $1bn for the first time.

• Shopee did $37.3bn of GMV, up 30%, on 4.0 billion gross orders, generating $5.1bn of revenue. E-commerce is still the whole thesis for most holders.
• Monee, the credit business, ended March with a $9.9bn loan book, up more than 70% year on year, and grew revenue 58% to $1.2bn. A consumer lender growing 70% in Southeast Asia is either the bull case or the risk, depending entirely on credit quality holding.
• Garena booked $931m, up 20%, with revenue up 41% to $697m. Free Fire refuses to die, and gaming remains the cash engine that funds the other two.

That mix is why the revenue consensus of $7.09bn for Q2, roughly flat sequentially against a 47% comp, reads as conservative rather than demanding. The comps get harder through the year; the question is how fast the deceleration runs.

The Number That Actually Matters: the 25% GMV Guide

Management's full-year 2026 guidance is Shopee GMV growth of about 25% with adjusted EBITDA no lower than 2025 in absolute dollars, and at Q1 they said they were on track. Hold that guide on Tuesday and the quarter's EPS noise washes out. Trim it, and a stock that trades on the growth story has a real problem, which is presumably why TD Cowen cut its target to $100 from $108 with a Hold into the print: that is a target below the $114.91 spot, from a bank explicitly previewing this quarter.

My read: the growth is real and broad, and the lending book is the piece to watch, not Shopee. A 70%-growth loan book only stays a bull point while non-performing loans stay boring. One line in the release about "stable asset quality" is worth more than the EPS figure.

Update, August 11: the guide held. Shopee GMV grew 28.4%, ahead of the 25% full-year pace, and Monee's non-performing loan ratio stayed at 1.0%, unchanged quarter over quarter, exactly the "boring" outcome that keeps the loan book a bull point rather than a risk.

The Options Angle

The 19.1% implied move needed the stock to clear roughly $137 or $93 to pay a straddle buyer. The realized move, a 13.64% regular-session gain to $130.52, was real and large, but it stayed inside that band.

• The straddle pass was correct. A 13.64% close did not clear the 19.1% breakeven in either direction, so a straddle bought into this print is sitting on a loss.
• The short-strangle pass foregoes a win, not a loss. A seller of that same 19.1% would have collected the credit; the dispersion in the five-analyst consensus that motivated the pass did not resolve into the extreme move it might have.
• The bullish shares position is the clean win of this print. Entered at $114.91, the position marks at $130.52, a gain of roughly 13.6%, exactly the "own shares into a held guide" thesis this preview argued for over expressing a view through premium.

Trade log

#	Stance	Structure	Strikes and expiry	Cost or credit	Spot at writing	Implied move	Result
1	Pass	Long straddle	$115, Aug 14	~19.1% of spot (live chain not sourced; quoted against the implied move)	$114.91 (Aug 6 close)	+/-19.1%	Win. Realized move (13.64%) fell short of the 19.1% breakeven.
2	Pass	Short strangle / premium sale	around the $115 line, Aug 14	credit ~ implied	$114.91 (Aug 6 close)	+/-19.1%	Opportunity cost, not a loss. A seller would have collected on the 13.64% move; no position was taken.
3	Bullish	Shares, no leverage	n/a	$114.91	$114.91 (Aug 6 close)	+/-19.1%	Win, +13.6%. Marks at $130.52 against a $114.91 entry.

The One-Line Read

Sea's revenue and GMV story carried the print exactly as this preview argued it would, growth accelerating rather than decelerating across all three engines, and shares closing up 13.6% on a soft GAAP EPS number is the clearest evidence yet that the market has stopped grading this stock on the number that is easiest to miss.