Trading on Corporate Earnings News

This is the first practical, hands-on guide to profiting from earnings announcements. Writing for investors and traders at all experience levels, the authors show how to take targeted, short-term option positions that are explicitly timed to exploit the information in companies' quarterly earnings announcements. They first present powerful findings of cutting-edge studies that have examined market reactions to quarterly earnings announcements, regularities of earnings surprises, and option trading around corporate events. Drawing on enormous data sets, they identify the types of earnings-announcement trades most likely to yield profits, based on the predictable impacts of variables such as firm size, visibility, past performance, analyst coverage, forecast dispersion, volatility, and the impact of restructurings and acquisitions. Next, they provide real examples of individual stocks-and, in some cases, conduct large sample tests-to guide investors in taking advantage of these documented regularities. Finally, they discuss crucial nuances and pitfalls that can powerfully impact performance. From start to finish, Earnings-Based Option Trades reflects the authors' proven approach to teaching in top MBA classrooms. It fully explains underlying theory, presents rigorous research to support the theory, translates theory into actionable, well-honed strategies, and shows how to execute those strategies with real-world, plain-English examples.