What is Earnings Surprise?

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Earning surprise is a phenomenon that occurs when a company’s actual earnings for a particular period differ significantly from the estimated earnings by market analysts. It is a significant metric that investors use to evaluate a company’s financial performance.

Understanding Earnings Surprise

A metric that measures the difference between the actual earnings reported by a company and the earnings that were expected by the market analysts. A positive earnings surprise means that the company has performed better than expected, while a negative earnings surprise means that the company has performed worse than expected.

Investors use earnings surprise as an indicator of how well a company is performing relative to market analysts’ expectations. A positive earnings surprise can lead to an increase in a company’s stock price, while a negative earnings surprise can lead to a drop in the stock price.

Impact on Stock Prices

A positive earnings surprise can lead to an increase in the stock price, while a negative earnings surprise can lead to a drop in the stock price. This is because earnings surprise provides valuable information to investors about the company’s financial health and future prospects.

A positive earnings surprise indicates that the company is performing better than expected, which could lead to an increase in investor confidence in the company’s future prospects and, consequently, an increase in the stock price. On the other hand, a negative earnings surprise suggests that the company is not performing as well as expected, which could lead to a decrease in investor confidence and a drop in the stock price.

Factors Affecting

Including changes in market conditions, unexpected events, and changes in the company’s management. Additionally, companies that consistently beat earnings expectations may have higher stock prices, while companies that consistently miss earnings expectations may have lower stock prices.

Market conditions can influence this, with changes in the economic environment affecting the company’s performance. Unexpected events such as natural disasters, pandemics, or changes in government policies can also impact a company’s earnings.

Conclusion

This is an essential metric that investors use to evaluate a company’s financial performance. Understanding earnings surprise and its impact on stock prices can help investors make informed investment decisions. It is crucial to keep an eye on the earnings reports of the companies that you invest in to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

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John Chen

John joined ExtractAlpha in 2023 as the Director of Partnerships & Customer Success. He has extensive experience in the financial information services industry, having previously served as a Director of Client Specialist at Refinitiv. John holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Commerce and Architecture (Design) from The University of Melbourne.

Chloe Miao

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Matija Ratkovic

Matija is a specialist in software sales and customer success, bringing experience from various industries. His career, before sales, includes tech support, software development, and managerial roles. He earned his BSc and Specialist Degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Montenegro.

Jack Kim

Jack joined ExtractAlpha in 2022. Previously, he spent 20+ years supporting pre- and after-sales activities to drive sales in the Asia Pacific market. He has worked in many different industries including, technology, financial services, and manufacturing, where he developed excellent customer relationship management skills. He received his Bachelor of Business in Operations Management from the University of Technology Sydney.

Perry Stupp

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Perry Stupp

Perry brings more than 20 years of Enterprise Software development, sales and customer engagement experience focused on Fortune 1000 customers. Prior to joining ExtractAlpha as a Technical Consultant, Perry was the founder, President and Chief Customer Officer at Solution Labs Inc. a data analytics company that specialized in the analysis of very large-scale computing infrastructures in place at some of the largest corporate data centers in the world.

Janette Ho

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Leigh Drogen

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Natallia Brui

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June Cook

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Steven Barrett

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Jenny Zhou, PhD

Jenny joined ExtractAlpha in 2023. Prior to that, she worked as a quantitative researcher for Chorus, a hedge fund under AXA Investment Managers. Jenny received her PhD in finance from the University of Hong Kong in 2023. Her research covers ESG, natural language processing, and market microstructure. Jenny received her Bachelor degree in Finance from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2019. Her research has been published in the Journal of Financial Markets.

Kristen Gavazzi

Kristen joined ExtractAlpha in 2021 as a Sales Director. As a past employee of StarMine, Kristen has extensive experience in analyst performance analytics and helped to build out the sell-side solution, StarMine Monitor. She received her BS in Business Management from Cornell University.

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Jackie Cheng, PhD

Jackie joined ExtractAlpha in 2018 as a quantitative researcher. He received his PhD in the field of optoelectronic physics from The University of Hong Kong in 2017. He published 17 journal papers and holds a US patent, and has 500 citations with an h-index of 13. Prior to joining ExtractAlpha, he worked with a Shenzhen-based CTA researching trading strategies on Chinese futures. Jackie received his Bachelor’s degree in engineering from Zhejiang University in 2013.

Yunan Liu, PhD

Yunan joined ExtractAlpha in 2019 as a quantitative researcher. Prior to that, he worked as a research analyst at ICBC, covering the macro economy and the Asian bond market. Yunan received his PhD in Economics & Finance from The University of Hong Kong in 2018. His research fields cover Empirical Asset Pricing, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Intellectual Property. His research outputs have been presented at major conferences such as AFA, FMA and FMA (Asia). Yunan received his Masters degree in Operations Research from London School of Economics in 2013 and his Bachelor degree in International Business from Nottingham University in 2012.

Willett Bird, CFA

Prior to joining ExtractAlpha in 2022, Willett was a sales director for Vidrio Financial. Willett was based in Hong Kong for nearly two decades where he oversaw FIS Global’s Asset Management and Commercial Banking efforts. Willett worked at FactSet, where he built the Asian Portfolio and Quantitative Analytics team and oversaw FactSet’s Southeast Asian operations. Willett completed his undergraduate studies at Georgetown University and finished a joint degree MBA from the Northwestern Kellogg School and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2010. Willett also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

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Jeff Geisenheimer

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Vinesh Jha

Vinesh founded ExtractAlpha in 2013 with the mission of bringing analytical rigor to the analysis and marketing of new datasets for the capital markets. Since ExtractAlpha’s merger with Estimize in early 2021, he has served as the CEO of both entities. From 1999 to 2005, Vinesh was the Director of Quantitative Research at StarMine in San Francisco, where he developed industry leading metrics of sell side analyst performance as well as successful commercial alpha signals and products based on analyst, fundamental, and other data sources. Subsequently, he developed systematic trading strategies for proprietary trading desks at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley in New York. Most recently he was Executive Director at PDT Partners, a spinoff of Morgan Stanley’s premiere quant prop trading group, where in addition to research, he also applied his experience in the communication of complex quantitative concepts to investor relations. Vinesh holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge, both in mathematics.

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