Earnings Season: What It Is and How to Read a Report

Four times a year, most public companies publish their quarterly results within a few weeks of each other, and share prices move on how those results compare with what analysts expected. Those weeks bring some of the biggest single-day moves of the year for individual stocks, and they can sway the wider market and even crypto.

The hard part is that a share price can move against the headline result. Each result is judged against what analysts expected, and the outlook a company gives for the next quarter or the full year can outweigh the quarter it just finished. When JPMorgan missed estimates in October 2026 but raised its forecast for interest income, its shares swung from a loss to a gain before the stock market even opened (source: CNBC, October 13, 2026), then ended the day lower (source: CNBC market wrap, October 13, 2026).

Reading a season well comes down to a few habits: knowing when the reports land, which numbers to compare with which estimates, and judging the reaction after the first session instead of the first few minutes.

What is earnings season?

Earnings season is the stretch of several weeks after each calendar quarter ends when most US public companies release their quarterly results (source: FINRA).

The timing comes from US filing rules. A company files a quarterly report, called a Form 10-Q, within 40 days of the quarter's end if it is one of the bigger companies the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) classes as a large accelerated or accelerated filer, and within 45 days otherwise (source: SEC, Form 10-Q). For the quarter that ended on September 30, 2026, that puts a large company's deadline at November 9, yet most large companies report weeks earlier. The fourth quarter has no 10-Q. The annual report, called a Form 10-K, covers it instead, and is due within 60 to 90 days of the year's end, depending on the company's size (source: SEC, Form 10-K).

Most companies announce their numbers well before those deadlines, in a press release (source: FINRA). The release is then attached to a Form 8-K, the report a company uses to tell the SEC about a major event, under Item 2.02, "Results of Operations and Financial Condition" (source: SEC, Form 8-K). Companies generally have four business days to file a Form 8-K (source: Investor.gov).

Because almost every large company ends its quarters on March 31, June 30, September 30 and December 31, their deadlines bunch together, and so do their announcements. That bunching is why the results arrive as a season instead of spreading evenly across the year.

When is earnings season?

Earnings season starts about two weeks after each quarter ends, in mid-January, mid-April, mid-July and mid-October (source: FINRA). Most large US companies have reported within about six weeks: in the July 2026 season, 97% of the S&P 500 had reported by August 28 (source: FactSet, August 28, 2026). FINRA notes there is no official end, although the flow of reports slows sharply as the filing deadlines approach (source: FINRA).

Each season reports the quarter that has just ended:

In the July 2026 season, the busiest stretch was the third week. FactSet expected 86 S&P 500 companies to report in the week after July 17 (source: FactSet, July 17, 2026), then 177 the following week (source: FactSet, July 24, 2026) and 136 the week after that (source: FactSet, July 31, 2026). Only nine were due in the week after August 7, by which point 88% of the index had reported (source: FactSet, August 7, 2026).

A few well-known companies report outside the main waves because their fiscal years end in other months. Walmart (source: SEC EDGAR, Walmart filings) and Nvidia (source: SEC EDGAR, Nvidia filings) close their years at the end of January, so they report in late November, February, May and August. Oracle (source: SEC EDGAR, Oracle filings) and Micron (source: SEC EDGAR, Micron filings) report in September, December, March and June, and Nike reports late in those months, sometimes on the first day of the next (source: SEC EDGAR, Nike filings). Retailers often end their quarters in January to keep the holiday season and its returns inside one quarter (source: FINRA).

Each company sets its own date and posts it in a press release and on its own website, sometimes more than a month ahead and sometimes only about a week before. Netflix set its October 20, 2026 report date in September (source: Netflix), while Meta announced its October 21 date only on October 12 (source: Meta). The October 2026 season opened with the big banks on October 13. The October 2026 earnings calendar lists its key dates and results.

Why do banks report first?

The biggest banks traditionally open each season. Their quarters end with the calendar, and very large banks have the accounting staff to close their books quickly, so the schedule tends to run from the biggest banks to the smallest (source: American Banker). In October 2026, six of the largest reported within two days.

Their results matter beyond the banks themselves. Lending, credit card losses and trading income give an early read on how consumers and companies are doing. Bank executives also comment on the economy on their calls before most other companies have said anything. For that reason, the opening days of a season can set the tone for the weeks that follow.

Why earnings season matters

Earnings season matters because it is when investors find out whether the profits they have been paying for are real. A share price reflects what buyers expect a company to earn, so the quarterly report is the regular test of those expectations, and a big gap between the two moves the price quickly.

For a single stock, the report is often the largest scheduled event of the quarter. Microsoft and Meta both reported on the evening of July 29, 2026. Over the next 24 hours, BloFin's Microsoft perpetual, a futures contract that tracks the share price, rose 15.2% while the Meta perpetual fell 8.2% (source: BloFin).

For the whole market, the season adds up thousands of these tests into one verdict. If most companies grow faster than expected and raise their outlooks, the index has more support. If the outlooks turn cautious, investors start to question whether prices are too high, and that can weigh on the index even when the quarter itself looked fine.

For the economy, earnings reports are one of the most detailed live readings available. Banks report on loans and defaults, retailers on spending, and technology companies on how much they are investing in data centers. Economists and central bankers read these reports alongside official data such as inflation and jobs figures.

For crypto traders, the season matters through risk appetite. When large technology stocks swing after their reports, investors can turn more or less willing to hold risky assets in general, and bitcoin sometimes moves with them.

Volatility rises around each report. Options traders know it in advance: option prices usually climb in the weeks before a report and fall back once the result is out (source: Options Industry Council). How implied volatility drops after Alphabet reports earnings shows that pattern on one stock.

What's inside an earnings report

An earnings report is a set of documents. It includes a press release with the headline numbers, the Form 8-K that carries it, the full Form 10-Q or 10-K filed later, a slide presentation and a call with analysts. The press release is what moves the price first, because it is the first of these documents to come out.

Companies usually publish before the market opens or after it closes (source: FINRA), outside the regular 9.30AM to 4PM ET session. So the first reaction happens in pre-market or after-hours trading, when fewer people trade and prices can jump further. Slide decks deserve some caution: FINRA calls them marketing documents that tend to paint a rosier picture than the official filings.

The release and the 10-Q follow the same structure as the three financial statements. The income statement shows revenue, costs and profit for the quarter. The balance sheet shows what the company owns and owes on the last day of the quarter, and the cash flow statement shows the cash that came in and went out. For reading a single quarter, a few numbers matter far more than the rest.

Earnings per share

Earnings per share (EPS) is the part of a company's profit that belongs to each share of its common stock, in practice the quarter's net income divided by the number of shares (source: SEC glossary). It is the headline number most reports are judged on, so it is the first figure to check against the estimate.

Reports show two versions. Basic EPS counts only the shares already issued. Diluted EPS also counts shares that could be created from options, convertible bonds and similar securities, so it is equal to or lower than basic EPS. Analysts' estimates are normally on a diluted basis, so that is the figure to compare.

Revenue, the total value of what the company sold, sits next to EPS in every headline. The two can tell different stories. A company can lift EPS by cutting costs or buying back shares while sales stall, and growth investors often watch revenue first for that reason. A beat on both is a cleaner result than a beat on one.

GAAP and adjusted earnings

Most large companies report two profit figures. GAAP earnings follow generally accepted accounting principles, the official US rules. Adjusted earnings, also called non-GAAP, remove items the company considers one-off, such as a legal charge or a loss on selling investments.

The SEC lets companies show adjusted figures only alongside the matching GAAP figure, with a reconciliation explaining every difference, under a rule called Regulation G (source: eCFR, 17 CFR Part 244). The reconciliation is worth reading, because it shows exactly what was removed.

The October 2026 bank reports showed why. Bank of America earned $0.91 a share under GAAP and $1.08 adjusted, the difference being a $1.2 billion regulatory settlement charge, or $0.17 a share (source: Bank of America, Q3 2026 release). Investing.com compared the adjusted figure with a $1.10 forecast and reported it as a miss (source: Investing.com, October 14, 2026). Whether to look through a charge is a judgment you can make yourself once you see what it was.

Guidance

Guidance is the company's own forecast for the next quarter or the full year, and it often moves the price more than the quarter just finished. A report looks backward; guidance tells you what management expects next. FactSet counts guidance as negative when the company's figure, or the middle of its range, sits below analysts' average estimate on the day before it was issued, and positive when it sits above (source: FactSet, October 9, 2026).

Not every company gives guidance, and some give it only for revenue or only once a year. When a company does give it, compare the new range with the previous one and with analysts' estimates, because a raised outlook can rescue a weak quarter, and a cut can sink a strong one.

The earnings call

The earnings call is a live conference call, usually an hour or so after the release, where executives walk through the results and take questions from analysts. Anyone can listen. Regulation FD bars companies from sharing important news privately with selected investors (source: eCFR, 17 CFR Part 243). That is why companies announce the call in advance and let anyone listen by phone or webcast, the approach the SEC described when it adopted the rule (source: SEC, Regulation FD release).

The call is where guidance gets explained and where the analysts' questions reveal what the market is worried about. A share price that moved one way on the release can turn on a single answer during the call, which is one reason the first move after a report so often reverses.

How to read an earnings report, step by step

Reading an earnings report comes down to comparing a handful of numbers with what was expected, in a fixed order, before you look at the share price. Six steps work for any company, whether it is a bank, a retailer or a chipmaker, and they take about ten minutes once you know where to look.

Step 1: Find the date and the time. Check the company's investor relations page for the date and whether it reports before the open or after the close. That tells you when the price will react and whether the first reaction happens outside regular trading hours.

Step 2: Note the consensus estimate. The consensus is the average forecast of the analysts who cover the stock. A result above it is a beat, below it a miss, and equal to it in line (source: FINRA). Write down EPS and revenue estimates from one provider, because different providers average different analysts.

Step 3: Compare EPS, both GAAP and adjusted. Check the headline figure against the estimate, then read the reconciliation to see what any adjustment removed.

Step 4: Compare revenue. A beat on EPS with a miss on revenue often means cost cuts or a one-off gain did the work.

Step 5: Read the guidance. Compare the new outlook with the old one and with estimates. This is often the number that decides the reaction.

Step 6: Listen to the call, then watch the full session. Note what analysts ask about, and judge the reaction by the close of the next regular session, which is often different from the first move.

Worked example: JPMorgan's October 2026 report

JPMorgan reported its third-quarter 2026 results before the market opened on October 13, 2026, with its Form 8-K filed at 6.30AM ET. Running it through the six steps shows why the price swung.

The bank earned $5.57 a share under GAAP, or $5.75 excluding $658 million of losses on investment securities (source: JPMorgan, Q3 2026 release). Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected $5.90, so both figures missed. Managed revenue of $50.9 billion also fell short of the $51.2 billion estimate. The weak spot was fixed income trading, about $550 million below estimates (source: CNBC, October 13, 2026).

The guidance pointed the other way. JPMorgan raised its 2026 forecast for net interest income, the money it earns on loans minus what it pays on deposits, to about $106.2 billion from $105.5 billion. It also raised its expense forecast, to $108.6 billion from $107.5 billion (source: CNBC, October 13, 2026). A miss on the quarter met a better outlook for the year, and the price had to weigh one against the other.

BloFin's JPMUSDT Perpetual, which tracks JPMorgan's share price, shows what happened next:

On the New York Stock Exchange, the shares ended the day 0.9% lower (source: CNBC market wrap, October 13, 2026). Anyone who judged the report by its first 30 minutes saw a sharp fall, anyone who looked at 7.15AM saw a gain, and the close settled somewhere in between. That is why a report is best judged at the close of the next full session.

You can replay that morning yourself: open the JPMUSDT Perpetual chart on BloFin, switch to 15-minute candles and scroll back to October 13, 2026. Then watch the same chart the next time JPMorgan reports, since the big banks open every season.

Why a stock can fall after beating estimates

A stock can fall after beating estimates because the price already reflected a good result, or because something else in the report disappointed. FINRA gives both reasons: a company can beat but give a gloomy outlook, or a stock that rallied before the report can simply run out of new buyers (source: FINRA).

Citigroup showed it on October 13, 2026. It earned $2.85 a share against an LSEG estimate of $2.66 and beat on revenue too (source: CNBC, October 13, 2026). Its shares still closed 5.6% lower that day, at $124.53 against $131.92 the day before (source: Yahoo Finance, Citigroup price history). Across the July 2026 season, S&P 500 companies that beat estimates rose only 0.6% on average from two days before to two days after their reports, while those that missed fell 2.5% (source: FactSet, August 28, 2026). The penalty for a miss is usually bigger than the reward for a beat.

Four things tend to explain a beat that falls:

• Guidance. A softer outlook for the next quarter outweighs a strong quarter just finished.

• The whisper number. Traders sometimes expect more than the published consensus, and FINRA notes that this whisper number can become the real bar.

• Quality of the beat. A beat that comes from a one-off gain, a lower tax rate or cost cuts, with weak revenue, impresses investors less than growth in sales.

• The market that day. On October 14, 2026, the S&P 500 dropped 1.1% (source: Yahoo Finance, S&P 500 price history) after a hotter-than-expected inflation report (source: CNBC, October 14, 2026). Morgan Stanley, which reported that morning, closed 2.75% lower (source: Yahoo Finance, Morgan Stanley price history).

The reverse can happen too, at least for a while, as JPMorgan's miss that traded higher before the open showed.

What is the implied move?

The implied move is the size of the price swing the options market is pricing in for a report, in either direction. You can estimate it by adding the price of the at-the-money call and the at-the-money put that expire just after the report (source: Fidelity). A call is an option to buy the stock at a set price, a put is an option to sell it, and at the money means that set price is the one closest to where the stock trades now.

Say a stock trades at $100, the at-the-money call costs $3 and the put costs $3. The pair costs $6, so the options market expects a move of roughly 6%, up or down, by expiry. Cboe notes that options pricing generally shows the size of the expected reaction, not its direction (source: Cboe).

The implied move is useful even if you never trade options. It tells you how big a move counts as normal for this stock on this report, so you can size a position for it. It also shows when a reaction was a genuine surprise.

How earnings season is scored: Beat rates and the growth rate

Each season gets a running scorecard from data providers such as FactSet, built on two numbers: the share of companies beating estimates, and the combined earnings growth of the S&P 500 compared with a year earlier. Both tend to look better than they really are, because analysts lower the bar before the results arrive.

Over the past ten years, 77% of S&P 500 companies have beaten their EPS estimates in an average quarter, by 8.0% on average. Actual growth has also beaten the growth rate expected at the end of the quarter in 37 of the past 40 quarters (source: FactSet, October 9, 2026). A pass rate that high is built in. In a typical quarter, analysts lower their estimates by about 2.5% as the quarter goes on, so the bar is lower by the time results arrive.

That is why a 77% beat rate is simply normal, and why the market reacts to how a season compares with that average. FactSet's own example shows the arithmetic. A company expected to earn $1.05 a share against $1.00 a year earlier is on course for 5% growth, but if it reports $1.10, its growth becomes 10%. As companies beat, the season's growth rate climbs week by week.

Those long-run averages are the yardstick for any season, and FactSet prints them for the S&P 500 each week (source: FactSet, October 9, 2026):

A season running above both averages on beats and growth is a strong one, and one running below them is weak even if most companies still beat. The weekly figures start from a small group of early reporters and only settle once most of the index has published.

Unusual items can distort the scorecard too. In the July 2026 season, S&P 500 earnings came in 26.5% above estimates in total, mostly because Alphabet and Amazon booked large gains on their investments. Without those two, the surprise was 10.8% (source: FactSet, August 28, 2026). The adjusted-versus-GAAP question applies to the whole index as well as to single companies.

Does earnings season affect Bitcoin and crypto?

Earnings season can move bitcoin, but loosely, through the mood toward risk across markets. The IMF measured a correlation of 0.36 between bitcoin and the S&P 500, on a scale where 0 means no link and 1 means the two move in step, in 2020 and 2021, up from 0.01 in 2017 to 2019 (source: IMF).

BloFin price data from the July 2026 season shows what that looks like on the biggest report nights. Each figure runs from 4PM ET on the report day to 4PM ET the next day. It uses BloFin's BTCUSDT Perpetual for bitcoin and its QQQUSDT Perpetual, which tracks the Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ:

Bitcoin moved with the Nasdaq-100 on three of the four nights and against it once. On all four, its move was larger than its average day. Across July and August 2026, bitcoin's average move over the same 4PM-to-4PM window was 1.3%, against an average of 2.0% on these four nights.

Four nights are a small sample, and other news moves bitcoin on the same days, from ETF flows to interest rates. The fair reading is that big-tech report nights tend to bring larger bitcoin moves, without a reliable direction. Does AMD's earnings report move Bitcoin? works through the same question for one chipmaker, and crypto portfolio correlation explains how to measure the link yourself.

A few reporting companies are tied to crypto directly: Coinbase, which runs a crypto exchange (source: Coinbase), Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin (source: Circle), and Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin (source: Strategy). They report in the same season as the big tech names. Their results rise and fall with crypto prices and trading volumes, so their reports can move the mood in crypto more directly than any other company's.

How to trade earnings season on BloFin

Trading around earnings means trading a scheduled gap, so the plan has to be made before the report, and with the trading hours in mind. BloFin lists perpetual futures on many of the season's biggest names, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Netflix, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Apple and Nvidia, plus funds that track the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100.

Stock futures on BloFin follow the US market's regular hours, 9.30AM to 4PM ET on weekdays. Outside those hours, and on weekends and market holidays, stock futures trading may be limited to reduce-only orders (source: BloFin, stock futures trading hours). A reduce-only order can close or shrink a position but cannot open or add to one (source: BloFin, reduce-only orders). JPMorgan's 4.6% drop and recovery happened between 6.30AM and 7.15AM ET, well before the regular session, so opening a position on that move may not have been possible until 9.30AM.

Most big reports arrive outside regular hours, so decide before the release whether you are in or out. Size the trade from the move you can afford to take. Say you have 1,000 USDT and will risk 1%, or 10 USDT, on the report. If the implied move is 5%, a position of 200 USDT loses about 10 USDT on a move of that size, because 5% of 200 is 10. Leverage shrinks the room to absorb a gap: at 20x, a 5% move against you is roughly your whole margin, and how liquidation works explains why the position closes before that.

A stop-loss caps a slow decline, but a gap can jump straight past it, and the fill comes at the next available price. JPMorgan's fall from 338.14 to 322.45 took about 30 minutes and then reversed, so a stop a few percent below 338 would have closed the position near the low, just before the recovery. How to set a stop-loss on BloFin covers placing one, and trading news volatility covers when stepping aside is the better plan. Sitting out a report and trading the reaction once the regular session opens is a legitimate choice, and often the calmer one.

Each big company has its own report pattern, from Apple's iPhone and services numbers to Nvidia's data center sales. Apple earnings reports explained and how to trade Nvidia around earnings go deeper on two of them.

For the full list of stocks, indexes and other traditional assets with perpetuals on BloFin, see the TradFi assets you can trade on BloFin.

Some traders would rather follow someone experienced through the season. BloFin's copy trading covers perpetuals on JPMorgan, Netflix, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Apple and Nvidia, and you decide how much each copied trader can use. Read how to copy trade on BloFin first.

Looking to trade earnings season? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the perpetual page for the company you're following, such as JPMUSDT, GSUSDT, NFLXUSDT, TSLAUSDT, METAUSDT, MSFTUSDT, GOOGLUSDT, AMZNUSDT, AAPLUSDT or NVDAUSDT, the SPYUSDT or QQQUSDT index-fund perpetuals, or the BTCUSDT Perpetual, or browse the lead traders you can copy on BloFin.

Frequently asked questions

Is it earnings season now?

Earnings season is underway from the week the big US banks report, in mid-January, mid-April, mid-July or mid-October, until most S&P 500 companies have published, about six weeks later. The quickest check is a weekly tracker such as FactSet's Earnings Insight, which gives the share of the S&P 500 that has reported so far.

What months are earnings seasons?

The four seasons start in mid-January, mid-April, mid-July and mid-October, and each one is named after the quarter it reports, not the month it happens in. The October season carries third-quarter, or Q3, results for July to September, so a "Q3 earnings" headline in October is about the summer. Companies with a different fiscal year number their quarters from their own start date, so a "third quarter" from Walmart or Nvidia, whose years end in late January, covers different months.

How long does earnings season last?

Most large US companies report within about six weeks of the first big bank. In the July 2026 season, the banks opened on July 14, and 88% of S&P 500 companies had reported by August 7, a little over three weeks later (source: FactSet, August 7, 2026). By August 28, 97% had reported (source: FactSet, August 28, 2026). A few stragglers report later still, so the season fades out without an official end date.

Is it better to buy a stock before or after earnings?

Buying before a report is a bet on the result, and you face the full overnight gap in either direction. Buying after means paying a price that already reflects the news, but you know what the company reported and how the market judged it. Many traders wait for the first full regular session, because early moves often reverse.

What is a whisper number?

A whisper number is the earnings figure traders privately expect, which can differ from the published analyst consensus. Traders may think analysts are too cautious or too optimistic, and FINRA notes the whisper can become the market's real expectation. That explains some cases where a company beats the official estimate and its shares still fall.

Do stocks go up or down after earnings?

Stocks can go either way, and the size of the move matters as much as the direction. Over the five years to mid-2026, S&P 500 companies that beat estimates rose about 1.0% on average from two days before their report to two days after, while those that missed fell about 3.0% (source: FactSet, August 28, 2026). A small disappointment can therefore cost a stock more than a strong quarter earns it.

Does earnings season affect Bitcoin?

Earnings season can affect bitcoin through general risk appetite, because bitcoin traded more in step with US stocks from 2020, according to IMF data for 2020 and 2021. On July 23, 2026, the morning after Alphabet's report, Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.75% and bitcoin was down 0.5% over 24 hours (source: CoinDesk, July 23, 2026). Interest rates, ETF flows and crypto news often matter more, so no report reliably moves bitcoin one way.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Sources include SEC forms and rules, FINRA, FactSet Earnings Insight, company earnings releases and filings, CNBC, Cboe, the Options Industry Council, the IMF, CoinDesk and BloFin, current as of October 16, 2026.

Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any stock, crypto asset or other instrument. Earnings reports often arrive outside regular trading hours, when a stock perpetual may be limited to reduce-only orders, so a position held through a report can gap past your stop, and a leveraged position can be liquidated and lose all the margin behind it. BloFin services are not available in restricted locations, including the United States. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.