Earnings Surprise
What Is an Earnings Surprise?
An earnings surprise occurs when a company's reported quarterly or annual profits are above or below analysts' expectations. These analysts, who work for a variety of financial firms and reporting agencies, base their expectations on a variety of sources, including previous quarterly or annual reports and current market conditions, as well as the company's own earnings' predictions or "guidance."
Breaking Down Earnings Surprise
In order to create an accurate forecast of how a specific company’s stock will perform, an analyst must gather information from several sources. They need to speak with the company’s management, visit that company, study its products and closely watch the industry in which it operates. Then, the analyst will create a mathematical model that incorporates what the analyst has learned and reflects their judgment or expectation of that company’s earnings for the forthcoming quarter. The expectations may be published by the company on its website, and will be distributed to the analyst’s clients. A surprise occurs when a company reports numbers that deviate from those estimates.
Earnings surprises can have a huge impact on a company's stock price. Several studies suggest that positive earnings surprises not only lead to an immediate hike in a stock's price, but also to a gradual increase over time. Hence, it's not surprising that some companies are known for routinely beating earning projections. A negative earnings surprise will usually result in a decline in share price.
Analysts spend an enormous amount of time before companies’ reporting their results, trying to predict earnings per share (EPS) and other metrics. Many analysts use forecasting models, management guidance, and additional fundamental information to derive an EPS estimate. A discounted cash flows model or DCF is a popular intrinsic valuation method.
DCF analyses use future free cash flow projections and discount them via a required annual rate. The result of the valuation process is a present value estimate. This, in turn, is used to evaluate the company’s potential for investment. If the value arrived at through the DCF is higher than the current cost of the investment, the opportunity could be a good one.
What Is Fundamental Analysis?
Fundamental analysis (FA) is a method of measuring a security's intrinsic value by examining related economic and financial factors. Fundamental analysts study anything that can affect the security's value, from macroeconomic factors such as the state of the economy and industry conditions to microeconomic factors like the effectiveness of the company's management.
The end goal is to arrive at a number that an investor can compare with a security's current price in order to see whether the security is undervalued or overvalued.
This method of stock analysis is considered to be in contrast to technical analysis, which forecasts the direction of prices through an analysis of historical market data such as price and volume.
What Is an Earnings Announcement?
An earnings announcement is an official public statement of a company's profitability for a specific period, typically a quarter or a year. An earnings announcement occurs on a specific date during earnings season and is preceded by earnings estimates issued by equity analysts. If a company has been profitable leading up to the announcement, its share price will usually increase up to and slightly after the information is released. Because earnings announcements can have such a prominent effect on the market, they are often considered when predicting the next day's open.
Understanding Earnings Announcements
The data in the announcements must be accurate, according to Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. Because the earnings announcement is the official statement of a company's profitability, the days leading up to the announcement are often filled with speculation among investors.
Analyst estimates can be notoriously off-the-mark and can rapidly adjust up or down in the days leading up to the announcement, artificially inflating the share price and affecting speculative trading.
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