One strategy that I use for daily trades is playing the earnings announcement game.

I visit the Yahoo! Finance earnings calendar at the beginning of the week, find a stock that I think is popular and trades with a large volume. I take a "guestimate" about their earnings and either short the stock if I think earnings are going to be worse, or buy the stock if I think they will outperform. I'm not always correctly, but usually.

Mike 

That is a good strategy.  I think I once heard that a stock price will go up just before an earnings announcement, so it is a good thing to watch.

Use caution that can be a dangerous plank to walk, if your stuck on that kinda play, try buying half before the announcement and if it's good, buy the other half after.          Good Luck&Happy Stock Hunting

You got that right.. it's a risky proposition.

In my "Beat the Street" account I shorted BOBE because I thought there would be an earnings shortfall. I was wrong and now I'm in the hole BIG TIME.

I don't ever use options in my "real" account, but WSS is just a game so it's easier to accept the high risk.

Thanks for the info

Playing earnings can be profitable but you have to be careful,sometimes your not just betting that the company will beat earnings or not sometimes a company has to destroy earnings to raise stock price and sometimes they can miss on earnings and the stock goes up cause they still did better than was thought.

I have tried that a couple of times, but I has never tourned out good for me

i will try that 

What chart predicts results from earnings reports. THIS MARKET IS UNPREDICTABLE. Today BTU reports a double of previous profit earnings.Beats all expectations by a hugh margin. They say they can not keep up with demand for the future. A very strong and solid company, the shares dropped 5% on this news?

THIS MARKET IS UNPREDICTABLE.

Except for oil dropping, I can't see any reason why stocks would be climbing. Everything else points to a worsening economy, and lower corporate profits. You "called the shot" on things being unpredictable. ;-)

Hello Mr. Sonoran,

I have played this strategy many times.  It is one of my favorites.  The way I do it is I do a screen of all stocks on Telechart looking for companies that are in down trends but their character seems to change.  BOP goes green, price slides sideways, something to stop the downslide.  Then I research when their earnings announcement is scheduled.  I buy just off of the change in character.  I sell "before" the announcement. 

The logic here is that the folks that have been selling off  their shares stop doing so when it starts getting close to earnings.  Their previous "fear" is offset by their "hope".  This tends to stop the stock price from dropping.  Once it stops going down and starts going up a bit a lot of people will jump thinking that everybody else knows something they don't.  

Protect your principal and trade with luck, 

Barbershores  

This seems to be a risky strategy. Since I have nothing to lose, I'll try it.