Earnings season
Definition · Level 9 · Valuation
Keep reading with Tradecraft
You’ve read your 3 free definitions this month. Tradecraft explains all 738 terms and strategies, with the lessons that teach them, flashcards that come back before you forget, quizzes and a payoff lab.
The roughly six-week stretch after each quarter ends when most listed companies report results. In the US it traditionally kicks off with the big banks about two weeks into the new quarter.
Example
Q1 results: mid-April to late May, with mega-cap tech in the busiest weeks.
Rules and market figures change: check the current ones before relying on this.
Where Tradecraft teaches it
Level 9 · Valuation, in the lesson “Earnings season language”: Consensus, beats and misses, guidance, whispers, filings and adjusted numbers.
Related terms
- 10-K / 10-Q / 8-KSEC filings: the audited annual report, the unaudited quarterly report, and the current report for material events such as earnings releases, deals…
- Beat / missReporting results above / below analysts’ expectations; quoted separately for revenue and EPS, often with the size of the surprise.
- ConsensusThe average or median of sell-side analysts’ published estimates — the bar a reported quarter is judged against.
- GuidanceManagement’s own forecast for coming periods (revenue, EPS, margins, capex).
- Margin expansion / compressionA rise or fall in profit as a share of revenue (gross, operating or net), usually quoted in basis points year over year.
- Non-GAAP“Adjusted” figures that strip out items such as stock comp, acquired-intangible amortization or restructuring, reconciled to the rule-based numbers.