They move on the distance between what a company reports and what
investors were already expecting. Measuring that distance is the
whole job, and we have been at it since 1998.
0144,239Earnings Whisper® numbers published
069.8%of the time, the most accurate published expectation
014.8Msentiment readings from individual investors
0715,509earnings releases studied
The same report, two outcomes
This is the idea the whole company runs on. A report is not good or bad
on its own — it is good or bad relative to what the market already
believed. Change the positioning and the identical result produces a
different stock.
The company
Going in, investors were
Positive surprise into bearish positioning
The strongest setup there is.
Nothing good was priced in. Analysts have to raise numbers, short sellers
have to cover, and investors who had written the company off have to look
again. That takes weeks, not minutes.
Nobody gets to the answer from a single direction, so we come at it from four.
Earnings research
Finding the expectation behind the estimate.
We started in 1998 because the whisper numbers circulating then
were inconsistent and often little more than guesses. Professionals routinely
expected something different from the published consensus, and individual
investors had no way to see it.
Since then: 144,239 Earnings
Whisper® numbers drawing on 14,642
buy- and sell-side analysts.
The consensus tells you what analysts published. The Whisper tells you what
the market is pricing.
Analysts are one part of the market. Individual investors bring their own
research, biases, conviction, and positioning to every announcement —
which is why identical results produce wildly different reactions.
14.8 million
sentiment readings from over
1.44 million
individual investors.
The best setups show up when the professionals and everyone else disagree.
Quantitative research
Turning earnings data into something measurable.
715,509 earnings releases and
162,803 guidance
announcements, plus millions of expectation and sentiment readings and a
long shelf of academic work.
We study what has happened before the report, in the days right after it, and
across the quarter that follows — then build that into indicators rather
than opinions.
The data says which direction has the advantage. The chart says whether the
trade makes sense. A bullish setup running straight into major resistance is
a worse trade than the same setup with room to move.
Knowing where a stock might go is useful. Knowing where you are wrong is
what keeps a small loss small.
Three indicators, three different questions
They are not interchangeable. Each one covers a different stretch of the
earnings quarter, and asking the wrong one is how people misuse them.
Research the expectation. Measure the reaction. Follow the trend.
No single indicator tells the whole story, and anyone selling you one that does
is selling you something. But when earnings, expectations, sentiment, statistics,
and price all point the same way, the market is usually saying something worth
hearing.