just a reminder as we embark on earnings season to scrub your existing holdings and trade candidates for their scheduled earnings release date. companies typically report their quarterly earnings either before or after market hours, therefore, often causing significant opening gaps in either direction. some traders will avoid holding positions going into earnings while others might widen their stops while yet other traders and most longer-term investors might do nothing at all. the important thing is to be aware when your positions report so as to not be caught off-guard.
occasionally, i will find a large earnings-induced gap up or down as a excellent entry opportunity into a stock on my watch-list. for example, if a stock that i was watching for a long-side entry gaps down to a very solid support level on an earning miss, that might offer a nice buying opportunity. conversely, a stock that is already overbought and on what appears to be the final stages of an over-extended run might offer a nice short entry on a big opening gap, especially on a high-volume, exhaustion gap with confirming candlestick price action.
i usually prefer to use the briefing.com earnings calendar, which is provided in the link to the right under “Tools of the Trade”, as that calendar gives an easy to read of schedule earnings releases for the week and shows whether the company is scheduled to report before or after the bell (a very convenient feature). you might also want to bookmark earnings.com. if you click that link, it will take you to the weekly earnings view, which shows a more comprehensive list of companies reporting, with the more popular companies highlighted in bold for easy reference. you can also type in the name or symbol of a stock in the upper right-hand corner of that site to see when it is scheduled to report next, as well as the past earnings history, including the past estimates vs. actual reported earnings (also a useful tool).