Earnings Season
Earnings season is the stretch of weeks when public companies report their quarterly results in quick succession. In the U.S. it happens four times a year, kicking off around the middle of January, April, July and October and running for four to six weeks.
How to read it
By tradition the big banks go first (JPMorgan, Citi and others), followed by the tech giants. Retailers and some software companies report about a month later because their fiscal years are offset.
Individual stocks move a lot more during earnings season: a swing of 5% or more the day after a report is common. It pays to know in advance which of your holdings are reporting, and on what day.
Beyond any single company's numbers, watch the aggregate: what share of companies are beating on revenue and EPS this quarter, and whether more of them are raising guidance or cutting it. That is what sets the market's pricing for the next quarter.
Common pitfalls
- A company that "beats" doesn't necessarily see its stock go up. Expectations themselves keep getting revised higher ahead of the report, and what really moves the stock is often the guidance for next quarter.
On FinDog
The Earnings Season page lists, by date, the companies that have reported and those still to come this quarter, and tracks the share that beat expectations. The Earnings Calendar lets you browse week by week, with exact dates and whether each report lands before the open or after the close.
See this Earnings Season →Related terms
- BMO / AMC (Before Market Open / After Market Close)BMO (Before Market Open) means a company reports earnings before the U.S. market opens; AMC (After Market Close) means it reports after the close. The timing determines which trading day the stock reacts on.
- Consensus EstimateThe consensus estimate is the average (or median) of the forecasts that sell-side analysts covering a company have made for metrics such as revenue and EPS. The market uses it as the baseline for deciding whether a report was "good."
- Earnings Beat / MissWhen reported revenue or EPS comes in above the consensus estimate it is a beat; below is a miss; roughly equal is in line. The difference expressed as a percentage of the estimate is called the surprise.