Full disclosure this is a checklist I collaborated on in another discord group. Initial versions were created pre-covid. The ultimate goal was to weigh all the checklist items and DD to pick a direction for an earnings play. Obviously things can happen that are unknown to us before earnings or we can even get things wrong. However my take on earnings is just trying to get an edge so that you are profitable over time and not on every play. Anyways here is the checklist:
Core Checklist
Factsheet Basics - Know the basic stuff, don’t embarrass yourself
Fundamental Analysis - Healthy balance sheet? How about its performance metrics? How are the technicals (trailing) data?
Sentimental Analysis - How do smart people, incentivized people and standard people feel?
Macro Analysis - Anything “multi-country” going-on right now that can affect this stock/sector/in general?
Result Mapping - What are the likelihood and movement for each result?
Play Setting - What specific play are we doing? How are we entering and exiting?
Results and Feedback - What happened vs what you predicted? What did you learn? What did you miss?
Expanded Checklist
Factsheet Basics
- Stock Ticker - What the stock symbol is.
- Fundamental vs Growth categorization - Primary Bucket: Growth and Fundamental companies behave differently during earnings. The primary considerations are: Expectations, YOY revenue growth, Specific growth Metric outside of revenue. Companies in different categories have different benchmarks on fundamental ratios.
- Current Price - timestamp + price
- Earnings Time and Date - BMO, AMC, During, + date
- Earnings Quarter and Fiscal Year - Keeping track of seasonalities (FY don’t always match
Fundamental Analysis
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Technical analysis
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PC Ratio Volume - On the day is best. The Volume for on-the-day options activity is a great indicator on how the options traders view the stock, specific for earnings. (more accurate)
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PC Ratio Open Interest - On the day is most accurate, but Open Interest indicates how many open contracts (buyer and seller confirmed) are currently active. Checking Open Interest on the option chain is a signal on how the options traders are viewing the earnings event and the stock in general. (more general)
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MACD Crossovers - Moving average Convergence Divergence - used to determine trend, strength of momentum, and direction of a stock price.
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RSI Levels - 30 Oversold, 50 Average, 70 Overbought
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Support Levels - based on moving averages and fibonacci to find how far the stock can realistically drop
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Resistance Levels - based on previous bounces and fibonacci
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20/50/200 day Moving Averages - 50D most important as it correlates directly to a single quarter’s time frame.
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Fundamental Ratios
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PE - Price to earnings. Expensive for the stockholder or Value? Fundamental or growth companies have different PE acceptance points, with fundamental generally having lower PE than growth.
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P/FS - A secondary value method for companies doing massive revenue but not making much in profit.
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Debit/Equity - Primarily for fundamental companies and debt-fueled growth. Higher the number, the more risk it has.
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EPS - Earnings metric, guidance from the company’s previous earnings.
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Key Metric*** (subjective, core KPI) - This must be discovered individually, though patterns exists as well. Mostly used by high growth companies as a secondary metric to look at beyond EPS and PE to showcase their growth story and dilute its ugly fundamental ratios. Some examples like (Netflix - Subscriber count), (Chipotle - Same store Sales), (Wayfair - average order value)
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Earnings Movement
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Previous earnings movement - using MC, sort through previous earnings movements, attention to drift from previous earnings and month-after effect
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Momentum - If a stock has been going up for awhile, or going down for awhile, would this affect the earnings? What if the stock gaps up/down a few days prior to earnings; what are the effects?
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Gap vs Price effect - Gap is the day-end to day-beginning price change. The price effect is the change from Gap to the end of the same day. This difference showcases both momentum tendencies (Gap is weak, price effect doubles gap etc) and helps to set up an exit strategy.
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Implied Movement - The implied movement via options is calculated by the options straddle pricing. This number is what the options trader expect the stock to move post earnings. IM is the basis of selling contracts, as it grants an additional layer of protection in times when the stock goes against you. Attention to price effect vs implied movement. If IM historically overshoots price effect, it sets up for a lower risk play.
Sentimental Analysis
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Professional Sentiments
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Analysis Price Target - Price target is the average analyst price for all analysts covering the stock. This is a 1 year period, so the accuracy here is very lenient.
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Earnings Revisions - Has the company revised its EPS/REVENUE or other targets in the last 90 days? If so, up or down?
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Analyst Ratings (90D changes) - What are analyst’s predictions regarding the company’s EPS and Revenue guidance? What are the expectations?
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Seeking Alpha contributor sentiments - Based on the various reasons each contributor discussed, what are their sentiments? Are there any specific facts that you think may contribute to the performance? Any overlaps?
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Media Sentiments
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General media Sentiments (barrons, yahoo, motley) - General media is considered the most basic of basic informational sites. Their primary value is to assess the general american retail trading demographic, which would be their primary readership.
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Model Keywords
1. Low information retail
2. Mass retail
3. Predominantly American native (vs immigrants etc)
4. Relationship driven
5. Focus on risk aversion
6. Long term perspective
7. Ages 35-65, values Cramer
8. Dominantly conservative
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Modern media sentiments (bloomberg, WSJ, CNBC) - Modern general media primarily for the news savvy. Constant media cycle with split around the modern american political system (left right center) Primary value is to judge the general informed public sentiments and to seek connections with macro happenings.
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Model Keywords
1. General Retail
2. Trader’s average news source
3. Informed, or believe they are informed
4. Political leanings and biases
5. More in sync with modern psychology
6. Long to mid term perspective
7. Ages 25-50
8. Dominantly Dem + Cons, less middle
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Google news (keywords: earnings, stock) - This is more to catch whatever information was not provided within the General + Modern media segments.
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Retail Sentiments
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Stocktwits sentiments - Above average intelligence with live options.
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Twitter sentiments - Live options with average intelligence. Lots of noise. Gems can be found, as well as technical analysis.
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Short Interest - Short interest and days to cover to show how stock traders feel about the upcoming earnings. Historic events
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WSB - Any gems?
Macro Analysis
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Current world trade sentiments - China, USMCA, BREXIT etc.
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Current government reporting
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PMI index - purchasing manager => import
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Inflation - core tenant for federal interest rate, affects bonds
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ISM Manufacturing - internal manufacture => export + spending
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Jobless Claims - employment rate
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Sector headwinds and tailwinds
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Retail, Cloud Technology, FAANG, Banks, Etc
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Pattern recognition (PE vs Expectations within retail, Subscriber count for growth story etc)
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Fear and Greed Gauge
Result Mapping
Insert Price target and approximate movement. Try to rationalize why, but setting targets more important earlier on.
EPS/Revenue vs Guidance (performance vs future)
(EPS vs Revenue) vs Guidance (individual performance) vs future
Format - EPS/REVENUE GUIDANCE - Price Target + Predicted stock movement + Likelihood ranking 1 to 5
Beat Raise
Beat Inline
Beat Cut
Miss Raise
Miss Inline
Miss Cut
Inline Inline
Play Setting
- Pick 2 from results mapping as the basis of the play
- Sell-side
- Start one side only
- Start Implied movement straddle
Identify exit strategy
Plan worst case scenario exit strategy
Max Loss calculation
At Support
At Resistance
Final Play
Trigger Plays
Gap vs Price effect difference
Momentum (Meme) identification
Purchase Time
Exit Profit target
Counter Play
Against - Stop-loss
Flat - Stop-loss OR calendar spread
Results and Feedback
- Enter only after closing position
- Total net gain
- Total net loss
What happened?
- Earnings result comparison
- KPI estimate comparison
- Stock movement
- Price effect
- Earnings call notes
- Other miscellaneous notes
Ex: if pc volume ratio is 1.5 then this piece of info is a bearish info
1 tick for bear
Yes
Every tick adds up to a positive number for bullish, negative number for bearish
Bigger the number, the stronger the confidence
So -10 or 10 are good strong bear and bull plays
2 or -1 are good candidates for condor plays
31 piecs of dataa
i count it binarily
bullish = 1
bearish = -1
if number is between 5+ or -5(edited)
its iron condor
starting strike price based on ATM straddle or implied options movement
its so systematic
and 90%+ from over 200 in like 3 years
problem is
i cant differentiate from 1, 0.5, -0.4 etc
thats the priority weight im stuck on
i can say “the guidnace matter more for thjis earnings”
how do you translate that into weight?