When Publicly Traded Companies Report Quarterly Earnings:
Earnings Season is a period of time when the majority of publicly traded companies release their earnings reports. Generally speaking, each earnings season begins about 1-2 weeks after the end of each quarter. So companies will typically release their reports in early-mid January, April, July, and October. There is no official start or end to earnings season, but it usually lasts about 5-6 weeks. Overall, there’s actually not much time in-between each one (usually only a little over a month).
Not surprisingly, earnings season tends to be quite an active time in the market as analysts, traders, and investors review and react to the reports. Financial news media like CNBC and The Wall Street Journal provide detailed coverage on major earnings misses and beats, so it’s an active time for those types of broadcasts and publications as well. Earnings reports can have a major impact on stockholder positions – whether to enter, exit, add, or scale back. As a result, it can be a volatile time as many market participants react to the new data, and it’s not unusual to see stocks move in excess of 20% in either direction depending on performance.
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