Earnings season is a busy season for professional stock traders.

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Publicly traded corporations release mandatory earnings reports every quarter. These four-times-a-year news releases are often the only real news that investors can use to judge how well a company’s business is going. Earnings season — when a lot of companies issue earnings reports — is a time when many investors make short-term trading profits.

Wall Street Analyst Earnings Predictions

The earnings predictions made by Wall Street analysts tend to drive stock price action around the earnings release dates. Analysts estimate the amount of sales and profit per share that each company will report. The consensus earnings estimate is the average of analyst predictions for a specific company for the quarterly earnings period. During earnings season, traders and investors focus on how closely the reported earnings match the consensus estimates. The earnings calendar lists when each company will release its quarterly earnings press releases. Traders focus on different stocks as the release dates approach.

Hitting or Missing on Earnings Expectations

The share price of a stock can change significantly if the company posts a miss compared to the Wall Street estimates. If the earnings are better than the estimate, the stock price will move higher. If the actual earnings come in close to the estimate, the share price will not move much. Most of the earnings-related price action occurs during the trading day following an earnings release. Trading strategies for earnings seasons revolve around stocks you think will miss the consensus estimates on one side or the other.

Trading Based on History

One earnings trading strategy involves finding stocks for which the analysts historically do a poor job of accurately estimating sales and profits. You might find a stock whose profits have beaten the estimates for several recent quarters — a stock that moved up on the earnings release. If you think the trend will continue, buy the shares just before the earnings release and sell on the news when the price jumps. To trade shares near the earnings release dates, you need to find stocks you have a reason to believe will be higher or lower than the estimates, but the reason should be based on history or your own analysis.

Trades for Big Price Moves