How To Trade Earnings Season
July 24, 2012 at 8:33 PM 
How To Trade Emini Futures During Earnings Season
For the most part you can trade Emini Futures just as you normally would during earnings season with one great big caveat - Be Flat Before the Open and Close.
Thursday 526 companies will report earnings. Some before the open, some after the close and quite a few at "unspecified" times. Many of these companies you've never heard of and no matter what type of earnings they report, their is little chance that they will move the overall markets. There will also be 381 webcasts, mostly during the trading day. The companies that are heavily followed and do have the ability to move the markets are also the ones that everyone knows exactly when the report will be released... and they're waiting.
If you happen to be long the Dow or S&P Futures in front of a positive earnings release - kaching! Right? Not always. Apple (AAPL) today was a prime example of what can happen and why you should consider being on the sidelines until the dust settles. Apple actually beat their own guidance. However, they failed to beat the expectations of the Street.
Apple Inc. reported that in the latest quarter, earnings rose 21 percent from the year before, not the 33 percent that analysts were expecting.
Apple is the world's most valuable company, and the earnings miss was only the second one in ten years. When the Globex session opened at 4:30 Eastern, here's how the S&P 500 Emini Futures reacted to the news that Apple's earnings rose 21%.
(ES) Emini Futures - Apple Earnings Post 21% Gain
It took 1 minute (60 seconds) and only 10K ES contracts to drop the price of the S&P 500 Emini Futures 9 Points from 1331.25 to 1322.25. You may not have an iPhone, an iPad, or even an iDea that those earnings were coming. Even if you did, how would you play it? A 9 point drop is $4,500 to a 10 contract trader. Yes you can use a stop and yes it can get jumped. Once the dust settled, Apple traded $35 lower in after hours trading but look what happened to the S&P -
(ES) 18 Point Rally After Apple Debacle
The moral of the story is simply this -
- Know which companies are reporting and when
- Get out of their way
- Then trade the "fear and greed" reaction of the masses
S&P 500 Emini Futures Twitter Feed
Monday night we issued the following Tweet -
Consider selling ESU2 @ 1340 Stop. #sp500 #emini #futures #trading
— DeWayne Reeves (@CFRN) July 24, 2012
Here's how it turned out...
(ES) Tweet - 18 Point Drop - S&P 500
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