Earnings Preview: Stocks That Beat, Miss Most Often

From the Bespoke Interactive Earnings Report Database, we filtered stocks with at least 20 quarters worth of earnings report data to find the ones that have beaten or missed earnings per share estimates the most often. These are key data points for stock owners to know, because they affect the sentiment and price reaction of stocks on their earnings report days.

While it is fundamentally positive for a company to consistently beat earnings estimates, it also creates high expectations for future earnings reports. If a stock has beaten estimates 100% of the time over the past 5 years, an earnings miss will most likely impact the stock more on the downside than a stock that beats only 50% of the time. Conversely, if a stock is known to miss estimates quite a bit, an earnings beat will most likely impact the stock more on the upside than one that beats estimates all of the time.

As shown below, 7 stocks in our database have beaten estimates 100% of the time since 2001 -- COH, UNH, SYMC, TRMB, COLM, LLL and YUM. Stocks that have missed the most include CFC, CCI, OSTK, AA, CAT, WFC and CVX. Expectations for these companies aren't very high.

Comments

[sunrises:]

Is it advisable to sell cvx prior to earnings report at 2-3% loss or wait through the volatilty?

2008 Jan 31 03:06 PM