Since 1998, Earnings Whispers has published 123,421 Earnings Whisper numbers and, 71.8% of the time, the Earnings Whisper number was the most accurate published expectation by gathering the true expectations of 11,833 professional analysts - people who actually get paid to tell hedge funds, portfolio managers, and broker clients their projections.
Back in the 1960's, Ray Ball and Philip Brown discovered a market anomaly known as the Post-Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD). Numerous studies since have confirmed the anomaly since, but since the Earnings Whisper number better reflects the market's expectation, investment models aren't changed merely by a beat or miss of the consensus estimate. Consequently, at least since 1998, stocks have only drifted in the direction of the surprise when it is based on the Earnings Whisper.
Combining the analysts' checks that make up the Earnings Whisper number, with measures of investor sentiment, we can score the likelihood a stock will see an Earnings Announcement Premium (EAP) - first discovered by William Beaver in 1968 - and move higher going into its earnigns release or move lower ahead of the news.
Much of the Post-Earnings Announcement Drift comes during the first several days after the earnings release but we've learned that, at least since 1998, there are some pieces of information that mean more for the longer-term drift and some things matter more to the short-term drift. The Power Rating focuses solely on the earnings and sentiment data that matters most for the short-term trade.
