Earnings Season

See also: Investment Ideas | Earnings Overview | Earnings Season:2024 Q4 | Earnings Season:2024 Q3| Earnings Season:2024 Q2 | Earnings Season:2024 Q1 | Earnings Season:2023 Q4 | Earnings Season:2023 Q3 | Earnings Season:2023 Q2 | Earnings Season:2023 Q1 | Earnings Season:2022 Q4 | Earnings Calendar(Nasdaq) | Earnings Season: Checklist

A full list of companies we closely follow during the Earnings Season

Portfolio Companies & adjacent

Meta

• Snap

• Pinterest
• Alphabet
• Microsoft
• Amazon
• Specialized Ad Companies?

Volkswagen

• Daimler
• BMW
• Tesla
• Ford
• General Motors

Sixt

• Hertz
• Avis Budget Group
• Enterprise Holdings (private)
• Europcar (owned by Volkswagen)

Upwork

• Direkt competitor: Fiverr, freelancer.com
• Indirect competitor: Linkedin
• Staffing Agencies:The Adeco Group, Randstad, Robert Half International

1&1

• Telefonica
• Vodafone
• Deutsche Telekom AG
• Vodafone
• Rakuten

Logistic Companies

Brief Look:

• Fedex. Fedex gives insights into the health of the overall economy.
• UPS.

Our Watchlist

Netflix

Brief Look: Netflix is often one of the first companies that report earnings. We should loosely have a look at their numbers.

Naspers

• Tencent

Our Earnings Programme

We follow a specific programme during the earnings season to ensure that we don't miss anything and that we take advantage of opportunities that the season presents. The following steps usually guide us during the earnings season.

Step 1: Planning

a.Prepare the calendar event for the earnings call and earnings report release of your company and the company’s competitors on the research shared calendar.

b. List down your company’s main competitors

i. Especially those that could be insightful to your company and its industry. For example, for Meta, you could check SNAP’s earnings. Usually, the first competitor reporting in an industry is the most important.

ii. Do your best to find the exact time of release. You could check the time from last earnings seasons. For instance, if Volkswagen released their report at 8am last quarter, we can assume they will release it at the same time this quarter (if the exact time can’t be found on the website). Additionally, you could check known websites for release dates of the past. Such websites could incude DGAP for German stocks.

Step 2: Research

1.Finish first draft of earnings expectations and present to User:PirateCaptain.

Before coming up with the draft, make sure to familiarize with the financial data. You should also peruse through them to ensure that nothing is missing. The draft should cover the following.

a. Summary of Management Guidance & Most important KPIs and numbers given in the previous periods

i. You can already build up on the earnings expectations for latest period.

ii. For Management Guidance

a. You can check previous quarterly report or conference call

b. Reasons? What did the company say about this guidance?

b. Analyst Expectation

i. Numbers from Yahoo Finance (Analysis) and Zacks

ii. You might check YouTube as well.

iii. Is this higher or lower than last quarter why

iv. Reasons

v. What do they say about the numbers?

c. Developments in Quarter

i. Relevant macroeconomic or political news or developments

a. Evaluate which news affects the company or the company’s industry/related verticals

b. For example: for Rheinmetall, Ukraine-Russia tension is still escalating, and European countries are panicking

ii. Company updates

a. This can be about product, management, and more

b. For example: for Spotify, Spotify Technology SA has started selling audiobooks on its US app.

iii. Note the impact of the news in terms of what to include here.

d. Management Guidance or Earnings Report of Competitors

i. Which one to report for your company?

a. If competitor still haven’t reported, their Guidance (Revenue,Income,KPIs)

b. If competitor already reported, their Earnings Report

ii. Add a short summary about competitor reports

a. Is it good or bad?

b. Reasons

e. Conclusion, Summary, and Personal Outlook for Company

i. Map out Pros, Cons, and Missing Pieces for the company given with what you have researched so far. (Comment User:PirateCaptain: Scan for red or green flags before the earnings and within earnings)

ii. Detail each point you want to highlight for your reasoning on your suggested positioning.

iii. No need to add your own numbers but mention reasons whether you expect the earnings report to be positive or negative.

Step 3: Reporting

i. Call Outline (90 mins estimate)

a. Main Highlights – 6 mins

b. KPI and Guidance Summary – 3 mins

c. Analyst Expectations – 3 mins

d. Developments in Quarter – 15 mins

e. Competitor Guidance/Report – 6 mins

f. Recap and Conclusions – 7 mins

g. Discussions & Allowance – 40 mins

h. Pressing Questions, Next Steps, and Sched Next Call – 10 mins

ii. Tips for Call

a. Prepare for your presentation, so you can report it well.

b. Don’t read everything

c. You can read headers then just mention main points

d. For more guidance, check Earnings Expectations sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hsho3W72EZ7cXpxAJYeuUWImCVBvW37Tfg5AahlJ8gY/edit#gid=940594445

e. The researcher should be done with expectations report and should present it to User:PirateCaptain SIX DAYS to the actual earnings date.

Step 4: Folllow-up Calls

As we wait for the actual earnings date, the researcher should have follow-up calls with User:PirateCaptain to answer the questions he asked during the above presentation. The call can also cover output for tasks given during the presentation.

Step 5: If applicable watch and summarize main competitor earnings call

a. For very important reports of competitors, watch it together with User:PirateCaptain.

b. Report main points of the call on Discord immediately as soon as the call ends.

c. If comp earnings mention trends or problems with the industry, investigate this and report.

Step 6: Decision Call

i. The Last Call would happen when there are no more open questions for your company’s earnings.

ii. Discussion on Earnings

a. map out Pros and Cons, detail your reasoning for your suggested positioning, and discuss with User:PirateCaptain

iii. Scenario Planning

a. What kind of different outcomes do we foresee and what would be our decision in those kinds of scenarios.

b. Goal: Have less pressure to make decision on earnings day and clear overview and cold minded decisions + preparations how to react in different possible scenarios.

Step 7: Define key data points and commentary that should be captured during the earnings cal

Before events we should always clearly define what we are looking for and how important it is.

Step 8: Actual earnings day

Wait for Earnings Release and Watch Earnings Call with User:PirateCaptain

i. Be in a Zoom call with User:PirateCaptain 30 MINUTES BEFORE THE RELEASE.

ii. User:PirateCaptain must be prepared to trade at this time.

iii. When the report is released, read and analyze it ASAP.

a. Discuss with User:PirateCaptain realtime

iv. Watch and analyze earnings call.

v. While waiting, you can already check Twitter, Google, and other platforms on what other people expect and think of the company’s earnings.

vi. Discuss which open questions from the call need to be researched asap.

vii. Schedule after earnings reflections and feedback meeting

Step 9: After Earnings Reflections + (Feedback)

i. Find time to further study the stock and earnings before the open in the next day

ii. Both researcher and User:PirateCaptain should answer the period's Earnings Research Review for your company: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b-bL1JxSjeU5dQd2Y_4n1OSJW99SLFsvRua-hsnXfuI/edit?usp=sharing