Preparing My Earnings Watchlist
So much of successful trading is about preparation. Preparation comes in the form of education, practice, watchlists, research, and more.
Preparation is all the behind-the-scenes work you do before you ever hit ‘confirm and send.’
Regarding earnings season, one of the most essential preparation tasks I do is creating an earnings watchlist. This is because earnings setups, like any trading opportunity in the stock market, will have a distinct moment in which it’s a valid idea. With earnings, those opportunities come and go quickly, so if you aren’t prepared by knowing which companies report and when or which companies are most tradeable, you aren’t able to capture those opportunities.
This is especially true with options trading because timing is everything! It’s simply not the same as using a dollar-cost averaging investing strategy in which entries aren’t as critical.
On My Radar
After using my earnings strategy quarter over quarter for many years, I have a distinct strategy for creating my earnings watchlist. I am looking for companies with enough movement in their implied volatility, sufficient volume and open interest in the options market, enough buzz or attention surrounding them, and patterns that can equal setups.
It generally takes me several hours to assemble the list from various sources, in which I check and recheck the dates. Of course, dates will change sometimes, or something was listed inaccurately, but I do my best to ensure it doesn’t happen. Ultimately, companies sometimes don’t confirm their earnings dates until much closer to the actual event so that the watchlist can be created several weeks in advance, but it must be subject to change. I always recheck my watchlist one week out, generally when you have the finalized dates and times for earnings reports.
Getting a date and/or time wrong can mess up your earnings trades, so it’s important to double-check before putting on any trades!
My Watchlist This Week
This week is going to be a BIG earnings week! We have already made it through two weeks of mega-cap tech earnings, with Tesla, Netflix, Microsoft, and more already reporting. However, this week, we will see results from Advanced Micro Devices, Starbucks, Pinterest, Shopify, Paypal, Amazon, Apple, Airbnb, and more.
Check out my weekly watchlist below:
AMD Earnings in Focus
AMD reports earnings on Tuesday after the bell. While I’m betting on AMD beating EPS estimates, the post-earnings move is another story. I am looking at this ticker for a premium crushing event and I’ll demonstrate why. Let me show you how you can take advantage of IV crush in the options market over an earnings report.
Earnings In Focus: CNBC – Power Lunch
On Monday, I joined CNBC’s Power Lunch to discuss a trading opportunity in Hasbro (HAS), Ford (F), and General Electric (GE). Check out the summary of my Hasbro idea on Twitter by clicking on the link below. Make sure to like and comment if you have a question for me!
Shares of Hasbro up higher following an upgrade from Bank Of America, betting on the new "Magic: The Gathering Cards". @TheDomino has the story with @traderDanielle on the trade in today's Three Stock Lunch. pic.twitter.com/lgW5sdFWNR
— Power Lunch (@PowerLunch) July 31, 2023
Watch the full segment on Youtube here!
What are you trading this week? Is there a specific ticker you’d like analysis on? Let me know on social media, and I may answer your question in a Youtube video!
